But I AM Madara!
by Kyong Kybis
Summary: 13 year-old Madara was just having a competition with Hashirama, when he suddenly finds himself in the Uchiha compound in Konoha. Wait. Since when does his clan live in a village and why do people insist that his name isn't Madara? At least, he has found a new friend who helps him paint the face which is stuck on a mountain and reminds him greatly of his eternal rival and friend.
1. Stones Are Dangerous

**But I AM Madara! – Stones Are Dangerous**

**Summary**: 13 year-old Madara was just having a competition with Hashirama, when he suddenly finds himself in the Uchiha compound in Konoha. Wait. Since when does his clan live in a village and why do people insist that his name isn't Madara? At least, he has found a new friend who helps him paint the face which is stuck on a mountain and reminds him greatly of his eternal rival and friend. Set prior to Uchiha Massacre.

**A/N:** I like to mess with the characters and time… Oh, and there are spoilers for those who aren't up to date with the newest Naruto chapters.

This story is as of now AU as it doesn't follow the canon plot from chapter 623 on, although it will incorporate some canonical elements of subsequent chapters.

**Disclaimer:** Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.

**8-22-13 This chapter was beta-ed by the awesome WynterSky ^^**

Madara Uchiha, a talented individual of the infamous Uchiha clan, was currently staring intensely at the other boy's eyes. Not once did he blink, neither did his opponent: Hashirama Senju, his eternal rival and friend.

Madara was confident that he would win this staring competition when suddenly Hashirama yawned and broke eye contact, scratching the back of his head.

Madara blinked several times, before he shouted, "why the hell did you do that?! We were in the middle of a competition!"

His words caused Hashirama to drop to his knees, looking very gloomy. In an equally gloomy voice he said: "I got tired from all this staring. Forgive me for ruining this competition…"

Already used to his friend's weird behavior, Madara sighed and rubbed his temples. "Forget it, it wasn't that important anyway." He dropped to the ground right beside his friends and started to gaze at the sky, watching the clouds.

"I wonder," Hashirama said, his face solemn, "when it will finally be over."

Madara instantly knew what he was talking about, even if Hashirama didn't elaborate further. Picking up one of the stones which were spread all over the ground, he glanced to Hashirama, whose focus was fixed on the river. "We'll change things for the better," he declared confidently and threw the stone skillfully so that it would skip to the other side of the river. However, the stone didn't follow its intended course at all and like a boomerang bounced right back to him, knocking him out.

The last thing he heard was the laughter of Hashirama. Little bastard would most likely never let him live that down.

~.O.~

Uchiha were people who could rarely be caught off guard, something which every villager of Konohagakure could attest to. But even they couldn't help the gasps escaping their throats and the widening of their eyes, when a boy suddenly appeared out of the blue.

His hair was dark and spiky and he looked like an Uchiha, which was the only thing that stopped the present Uchiha from killing him on the spot.

Fugaku Uchiha, head of his clan and known for always maintaining his composure, was the first to voice out the thought, probably everyone in this room was thinking.

"What the hell just happened?"

The sudden noise made the young Uchiha groan and slowly he tried to stand up, blinking several times until his surroundings were no longer blurry. "That's what I want to know too," he groaned, rubbing the spot on his forehead where the stone had smacked him. He now sported a bruise, its color varying from yellow to blue.

The first thing which hit him when he decided to examine his surroundings was the huge banner with the Uchiha symbol on it, the red fan. Well, the people who were currently staring at him now did look a lot like Uchiha. But why hadn't he seen them before? Unless he had hit his head harder than he had first expected.

Realizing that the other possibilities regarding the identity of that group of people weren't much better and some sounded very insane or slightly troubling, he decided to go with this one.

"So you're the Uchiha clan, right?" Well, if they weren't, he might as well say good bye to the world: other clans didn't take kindly to being suddenly intruded upon and apparently interrupted in the middle of a meeting.

"Yes, we are," the man, who had said something before, replied. "And who are you?" he asked. Although his voice was calm, the threat underneath it wasn't that hard to spot.

It was one of the most basic shinobi rules that you didn't give your full name to strangers. But maybe they weren't strangers at all and he had only temporarily forgotten about them. Madara was willing to take the risk.

"I am Madara Uchiha."

He certainly did not expect the reactions following the revelation of his name. Most of them only stared at him in disbelief, but the man was narrowing his eyes and one of the bigger Uchiha angrily hissed: "the hell you are!"

"I am!" Madara insisted, wondering why the hell they didn't believe him.

"He has been dead for a century!" the Uchiha who had voiced his disbelief earlier shot back.

"Well, then it must be another Madara as I'm pretty alive and kicking!"

"Not for long," the Uchiha threatened, "if you go on with that pitiful deception."

"I'm not deceiving anyone," Madara protested. "I really am Madara!"

The other Uchiha was about to retort when the man who had first spoken up said authoritatively: "Silence!" Although he didn't raise his voice, every noise in the room ceased immediately, making Madara idly wonder if that was the head of the clan—but wouldn't he at least recognize him?

Madara was jolted out of his thoughts when the man addressed him with an icy voice: "State your real name. I grow tired of all this immatureness."

As it was, he wasn't the only one to feel the same. "Get it into your thick head!" Madara snapped, his patience finally drained out. "I'm Madara and you not believing me won't change that fact, old man!"

The temperature had now reached its lowest point, and the tension was so thick in the air that he could nearly taste it. Madara gulped. Damn his temper! One didn't just simply waltz right into a meeting and insult the leader.

Not good, the current situation he was in wasn't good at all.

To his surprise and utter relief, the man hadn't ordered his men to execute him on the spot for his disrespectful behavior, but instead continued to interrogate him in an icy tone. "There are no Uchiha going under that name or else I would have known of that. So seeing as that is an obvious lie, can you at least prove that you're an Uchiha?"

Aware that he was pushing his luck, Madara nevertheless challenged: "Can you prove to be what you claim to be? The Uchiha clan?"

"You insolent brat! How dare you?" the Uchiha from before growled, taking out a kunai. At this, Madara's body immediately tensed and he quickly took up a fighting stance, shurikens materializing in his hands.

"Didn't I say to remain calm?" the man, who was most likely the leader of the group, said in a dangerously quiet voice, which made the Uchiha in question bow deeply.

"I apologize for disregarding one of your orders, Fugaku-sama."

Fugaku nodded curtly. "See that it will not happen again. As for you doubting us," he closed his eyes, only to reopen them again, his dark eyes turned into a color of blood red, three tomoes for each eye circling around the central pupil. The Sharingan. Now it was certain that Madara was indeed facing the Uchiha clan.

Madara didn't know whether to feel happy or horrified about this discovery. Remembering the man's earlier request, he activated his own Sharingan, blood red eyes meeting similar red eyes.

"I see," Fugaku said, now looking pensive rather than annoyed and fighting against the homicidal urge to strangle the boy. "You really are what you claim to be, at least the latter part."

Madara felt ready to bang his head repeatedly against a wall in frustration. "Why can't you believe I'm Madara?"

"Because not only does no Madara exist in this clan, it's also rather strange that you happen to have the name of our mighty ancestor, Madara Uchiha," Fugaku explained, regarding the young boy before him with a newfound interest.

No matter how much he tried, the situation Madara was currently in didn't make any sense to him. The people before him are the Uchiha clan so why didn't he recognize any of them and why did no one recognize him? Granted, Madara was only a child but he was still hailed a prodigy and pretty known throughout the entire clan and even in the higher ranks. His first idea that he had lost some of his memories didn't make any sense, seeing as he could clearly remember his real clan and his mind so far didn't show any gaping holes in it. So he was pretty sure that everything was alright with it, which made that Uchiha clan seem a bit fishy.

Unless they were impostors, using the Uchiha's reputation for their own selfish needs. Only the thought of it made his blood boil. But wait…the man who seemed to be the boss of this group had just shown him his Sharingan and it was in no way a fake. Only a real Sharingan could make one feel so uncomfortable under its gaze.

So had that man defected and due to his powers as an Uchiha made himself independent and formed a group, claiming to be the Uchiha clan—or did he even steal the Sharingan from an Uchiha?

He had only seen the latter occurring once. The man had been taken captive by an enemy clan and had been already dead by the point they had found him, blood still dripping from the empty eye sockets. Sometimes, he'd still have nightmares from it and after waking up, he'd make sure that his eyes were still there. The clan who had stolen the eyes had been wiped out entirely, not only out of vengeance but also out of fear that one of the Uchiha's strongest weapons could be used against them.

Although those theories made more sense than them being the Uchiha clan, there was still something that felt off, but he couldn't wrap his finger around it and that frustrated him to no end.

The clearing of a throat made him snap out of his musings and his eyes met Fugaku's, which were flickering with annoyance.

"Err, sorry. I was thinking about something," Madara said rather sheepishly, scratching the back of his head in an embarrassed manner.

Fugaku raised one of his eyebrows in response, so Madara elaborated further: "I'm pretty confused right now as you don't seem to be the way I remember the Uchiha clan at all." It was painfully true but it was not like lying would have gotten him out of the mess he had walked—or more accurately, fallen—into. And if these people were indeed a hostile group which was not above stealing children's eyes, then he was most likely in serious trouble either way.

If anything Madara's explanation confused Fugaku even further, when suddenly a theory formed inside the clan leader's head. "Well, why won't you tell us what's the last thing you can remember before you…arrived here in... such a curious way?" he asked, hoping to gain more evidence for his theory that the boy had suffered some kind of amnesia and having his mind replaced by twisted memories, even if that did not explain how the boy got here.

"Well, I was having a staring competition with a friend," Madara told them awkwardly. Saying it out aloud made him feel like an idiot, most likely because the idea had been a stupid one as Hashirama had already pointed out—even when he had told him to shut up because he hadn't wanted to admit that his friend was right.

"I see," Fugaku said slowly, having at least gained further proof to his other theory that the boy standing before him was an utter moron. "Any more details regarding that friend of yours?"

Inwardly, Madara gulped. Well, that was a question where he couldn't sputter some random reply. Until now he had kept his friendship with the Senju boy a secret as he was very sure that his clan wouldn't take that unorthodox friendship as something good. And as honorable as Madara knew his clan was he wasn't quite sure that they wouldn't use his friend for some nefarious plot to undoubtedly harm the hated Senju clan in some way.

Of course, he didn't intend to keep it secret forever but rather wait for a good opportunity—like him becoming the leader of the clan and Hashirama the one from his own clan and then forming a truce between them—to expose his secret. However, this was definitely not the sort of good opportunity he had in mind. So what to tell if not the truth? He decided to opt for the semi-truth.

"His name is Hashirama. He's a boy I met at a river and we have met there ever since." Well, there were some rather crucial details left out but technically it was no lie, so they shouldn't complain or become too suspicious.

To his surprise the man's reply was a totally different one than he had expected. "Oh, and now your supposed friend is Hashirama Senju, now tell us that the two of you are planning to found a village and the tale will be complete," Fugaku said in an obviously sarcastic tone.

"How do you know that?" Madara said, referring to the Senju and founding a village part, in his astonishment and shock not realizing that he had practically given himself away.

And this was the final proof to Fugaku's third theory that the boy was either delusional or insane and had run away from a madhouse. Now the only question left was how to deal with that boy, especially if he was indeed insane?

The silence coming from Fugaku unnerved Madara. What was he supposed to do? Let events take their course and remain inactive, fight them, or simply make a run for it?

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**A/N:** That was the first chapter. I hope you enjoyed it and if you don't feel too lazy or have enough time, please review! See you for the next chapter! :D


	2. I'm Not A Bastard!

**But I AM Madara! – I'm Not A Bastard!**

**A/N:** Thank you for the reviews! They really motivate me a lot :D As for the ones who wish to have Hashimara be thrown in the future too, well, I didn't plan this, but I see that this would make things more interesting.

So I will try to let him have an appearance in the story but I can't promise anything, sorry. This story also got even more AU with the latest release. What's with Uchihas and their tendency to drop friendships for the sake of their brother, anyways? I still can't believe that their friendship had ended just like that, at least it was for Madara…

And I don't get why Madara would let it nearly slip that he had a Sharingan in the last chapter, when it hadn't even awaken yet. Anyways, I better stop my whining now and go on to the story. I hope you enjoy this, even if there is not a lot of action, it will get better in the next chapters, hopefully.

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Fugaku was at a loss for words. Not only had a mere boy managed to slip through the Uchiha security, one of the best in Konoha, said boy was also under the ridiculous impression that he was the legendary Madara, co-founder of Konoha and strongest of the Uchiha clan.

What was the boy's intention? After considering everything calmly, simply brushing the boy's actions as stupid or insane was something he was sure he would come to regret later. After all, despite what the boy seems to be, which would be a confused, perhaps insane, idiotic boy, he somehow managed to sneak in this room without anyone noticing him.

The feast itself was very impressive, especially if one considered the fact that many of the most talented and skillful shinobis the Uchiha clan could offer were currently present in this very room. It was no assassination and also was probably not an attempt of secretly gaining information about the clan's future plans through spying the progress of the clan meeting (Fugaku thanked the spirits above that the meeting hadn't been about _that _topic, otherwise he'd have to deal with a new mountain of problems).

If it were indeed the latter and the boy had the needed ability to observe the clan's meeting, Fugaku was sure that the boy would have never done such a downright stupid mistake like revealing his identity to the entire clan by falling right amongst them and then claiming to be Madara Uchiha, of all people.

But then again had this boy some sort of ulterior motive for doing so? Was this a cover which would make people think of the boy as insane or stupid, disregarding the threat he might prove to be? Well, it had nearly worked.

However, why bother to go through so much trouble if he could have simple sneak away like a shadow the way he had manage to come in, delivering the information (thank Kami again, that the matter they had been discussing about was not one of the more secretive ones) he had gathered to whoever had hired the boy.

At the thought of the mysterious constituent a cold shiver ran down his spine. Was it Konoha itself? Had the council already become suspicious of the Uchiha's actions as of late, despite their efforts to cover them up?

Well, the key to his questions was the boy before him, he'd interrogate him and if that failed, he'd have to use more… forceful methods.

"Umm, and what now?" Madara asked, deciding that for once a fight would be futile, he was hopelessly outnumbered, genius or not.

He had several escape plans in mind but each of them was pretty risky, especially if he was indeed surrounded by people who had mastered the Sharingan which would render Genjutsu and most of his plans useless.

"Well, first of all, we'll search for proofs regarding your lineage. If it is revealed that you do not officially belong to the Uchiha clan, we'd have an entirely new problem," Fugaku said, his face blank.

Madara narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "And what sort of problem?" he inquired carefully.

"For example how you have managed to gain the Sharingan," Fugaku said bluntly. He knew it was risky to draw the boy out like this, making him think that he was already as good as dead or a prisoner, but it was a risk he was willing to take. He was no fan of mind games nor did he want to play along with the boy's lies, it was better to deal with the problem now.

And even if the boy decided to take action upon realizing that his cover didn't work anymore, what could he do? Fugaku was currently surrounded by his best shinobi. It was not like a, well, by the look of him, 13-year old boy could wipe them out singlehandedly.

That not so subtle accusation made several of the Uchihas stand up, drawing their weapons. "A spy!" one of them hissed, black bangs nearly covering the Sharingan eyes. Another Sharingan user, Madara thought surprised, almost disbelieving. And he was not the only one, quite a lot had activated their Sharingan, ruling out the possibility that they were impostors. Because no way in hell would such a grand Sharingan theft go unnoticed by the Uchiha clan.

Well, that made the whole situation even more complicated than it already was in the first place. Only then did the whole magnitude of Fugaku's words hit Madara.

Raising his hands in a placating manner, he shouted, half furious, half panicked: "Whoa! I'm not a spy, traitor or whatever you think I am! How the hell can you think that?!" In a calmer voice, he continued: "I am an Uchiha and my name is Madara, I am telling the truth, you have to believe me!"

"Your word alone will not suffice," Fugaku replied calmly, inwardly growing more and more frustrated with the boy's refusal to spit out the truth, however, violence would be the last alternative. He beckoned the others to sit down again, which some of them did rather reluctantly, especially the one who had spoken up earlier, Inabi Uchiha, who was now giving Madara a fierce glare which he returned with one of his dirtiest looks.

"And what do I have to do to prove that I'm telling the truth?" Madara demanded to know, grim determination flickering in his dark eyes.

"Well, let us first determine you status." This would be the first hint about his true identity, Fugaku thought to himself. "Shisui," he addressed the boy sitting next to him, who until now had only watched the boy curiously, even when the possibility that he was an enemy had been revealed. "Go check the clan register for any…" he trailed off, looking expectedly at Madara.

"You see my name hasn't changed in the past 20 seconds. It's still Madara, you know, " Madara said annoyed.

It took quite an effort on Fugaku's side to not throttle the boy before him in anger and frustration. Why did he still insist to play this deceive game? He sighed heavily. "Fine, I might have overlooked something," he relented, keeping the doubt out of his voice, if only so that the boy would stop pester him about it. "Shisui, check for any Madaras who would fit the description of this boy. I expect of you to look at the matching files very closely."

"Hai." And with a puff of smoke he was gone, leaving the Uchihas and a confused Madara behind.

"Hey, what is that 'Shisui' guy going to do now?" Madara asked, unaware that it was nearly bordering on shouting.

"He is going to check the register," the head of the Uchiha clan explained slowly, as though he was talking to a two-year old child. Even if it was a cover, displaying so much idiocy was rather embarrassing.

"Yeah, I know," Madara said, barely managing to keep his temper in check. "I'm not stupid."

Again Fugaku's face remained blank, although others gave out coughs which sounded suspiciously like "Of course", "Nice joke" and other not so very flattering things. A vein popped on Madara's forehead twitching, his hands begging to be used. Clan or not, he seriously wanted to kick their asses right now.

Only his survival instinct prevented him from doing so and after taking several deep breaths, he asked with forced calm: "But what is a 'register'? And to what purpose do you need to check it?"

"If an Uchiha is born," Fugaku began to explain, and if Madara didn't know better he'd say that there was a hint of an amused smile on his lips, "he or she will be added to the clan register under his or her birth name, along with the date of birth, the names of the parents and several other details known about the child, like the gender or blood group."

Madara suddenly had a very bad feeling about it. "And what if I'm not on this 'register'?" And why had he never been informed about such a thing existing?

"It would mean that your birth was not recorded to us which would ultimately mean that your identity was kept secret for…whatever reason."

Alright, Madara had to get rid of this little misunderstanding. "I'm not some spy who got his eyes transplanted from another Uchiha," he protested, feeling very insulted by the very thought alone, not to forget his annoyance that he had to repeat himself yet again. He hated it to repeat himself.

"I AM an Uchiha and I'm also not the bastard of some affair!" he added hotly, as if he hadn't notice some of them share knowing looks with each other when he insisted that his Sharingan was real and therefore meant that he was an offspring of the clan.

He wasn't a damned child who didn't have any clue about the… adult topics or was freaked out about this knowledge, no, he wasn't. Some had the decency to look ashamed or at least sheepish at his last declaration.

"That remains to be seen," Fugaku said calmly, clearly unimpressed by Madara's words which made Madara want to throw something in the old man's face, preferably something hard and sharp. Again, he squashed that thought before it could become too appealing, it wouldn't do to get killed now.

Fugaku prayed to all spirits above that the boy was at least telling the truth about him not being a bastard, because, otherwise, people would gossip about it and soon the whole clan would hear about it and then perhaps the whole village. Not only would the Uchiha's reputation suffer more than it already did, something like this wasn't viewed as a simple affair in the Uchiha clan. It would cause uproar amongst the clan and accusations would be thrown back and forth.

Aside from it being hugely shameful and in general opinion viewed as wrong, the fact that the Sharingan could end up in the wrong hands made conceiving a bastard one of the most forbidden things in the Uchiha clan. And dealing with this sort of trouble was the last thing he needed, especially when he had a coup d'état to plan.

Several minutes passed in tense silence, when finally Shisui reappeared in a puff of smoke, carrying stacks of paper in his hands. He immediately began to report while handing the paper over to Fugaku who quickly skimmed over them, a frown forming on his face. "I have looked for any Madara Uchihas born in the last 20 years, just to be sure, and I haven't found even as much as a remark about a Madara."

Fugaku's gaze wandered from the papers before him to Madara's face and in a voice as cold as ice, he asked: "So what do you have to say in your defense, 'Madara'?" sheer disbelief dripped from his voice at the last word.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Madara could see several of the Uchihas subtly take out their weapons, activate their Sharingan (if they hadn't already) or otherwise prepare themselves for any escape Madara might plan to make. As if he was stupid enough to attempt something like this, when his odds were so clearly against his favor, what, to his great annoyance, apparently some people thought he was.

For whatever reason, Madara had been always able to think very quick, when he was cornered and this situation definitely warranted as 'being cornered'. So in a hopefully calm and confident voice, Madara said: "Look, I have no idea how I got here, the last thing I remember was that I was knocked out," he told them, deciding that the 'how' wasn't that important, anyways. "And if I were a spy or an assassin I surely wouldn't do something as stupid as falling down right into the middle of the room nor would the people who hired me, if I were hired, let me go spying on you with the precious Sharingan, taken or not, if they weren't absolutely sure that I would come back alive with it which means that I have to be fairly competent and therefore would never have done the stupid mistake I've mentioned before," he pointed out. "So it means that it must be some kind of accident. Who knows what happened while I was out?"

If it was all Hashirama's fault, there would be hell to pay, but Madara doubted that Hashirama would go as far as bring him back to the Uchihas and place him like that, so he'd fall down right into the meeting, once he woke up, only to pull some sort of prank on him. Trespassing Uchiha territory was highly dangerous, but doing so as a Senju? Might as well book a trip to the deepest circles of hell. And Hashimara was insane, yes, but he did not harbor suicidal thoughts as far as Madara knew, which probably didn't mean a lot.

Stunned silence followed Madara's words. It was not the content which bewildered the Uchihas, as most of them had at least considered something along these lines, but rather the person who delivered it. Eventually, a long-haired Uchiha with for the clan unusual fair hair said in a very disbelieving voice: "That actually makes sense." Some could only nod in agreement, too astonished to say something. Another vein popped on Madara's forehead.

"Don't make it sound as if it's some kind of miracle!" he angrily shouted. He was a prodigy! Not an idiot, what the other clan members apparently thought he was. He bet that they didn't even come up with this!

While Madara was fuming, Fugaku was amazed that while his fellow clan members thought it possible that the boy was a spy, they still saw him as stupid, although one would usually come to the conclusion that a highly skilled shinobi couldn't be stupid. The cover was very effective, indeed, although having that sort of cover probably made the boy a bit stupid for posing as an idiot in the first place, especially if it was so convincing.

He turned to a group of Uchihas who were seated further away from him, known for their ability to think straight or as Fugaku liked to say 'also used their brain and not only their eyes.' One of them gave an imperceptible shake with his head. The boy wasn't lying as far as they knew. Shinobis were trimmed to spot body signs which gave away that a person was lying, add in the enhanced seeing ability gained through the Sharingan and it made it nearly impossible to give an outright lie to a capable Uchiha and Fugaku knew for a fact that they were. He couldn't see for himself as the boy would have surely become agitated when he saw the leader turn on the Sharingan which could be easily interpreted as an order to attack.

So that boy was either an incredible good liar, he was telling only the half-truth and leaving some crucial details out or he actually did tell the truth. Doing it the Shinobi way and torturing the truth out of him and then simply discard him would be the easiest and least troubling option.

Maybe the boy was really innocent, maybe all of his actions led to some ultimate goal which for the life of his Fugaku couldn't figure out. If this incident had occurred at another point of time the decision would have been far easier, but now with the boy's arrival a nearly abandoned opportunity had presented itself again.

Not as a clan head but as a father, Fugaku couldn't just ignore it. It would be for Itachi's sake. Genius or not, he knew that the pressure placed on Itachi could destroy Itachi from within but until now he had been the only one who could fit the role, until now…

Hopefully, he wouldn't come to regret this decision too much.

"Well, we should adopt you then," he eventually said, fully aware that he had dropped a bomb. Gasps were heard throughout the entire room, every face looked at him in shock and disbelief, including Madara.

What? Adoption? Into his family or does he mean into the clan? But I'm a clan member! Wait, what?! Madara thought, absolutely bewildered.

Before any of the other clan members could voice out their doubt about this decision, Fugaku had already raised his hand, making the Uchihas who were about to say something close their mouth. "We'll deal with this later," he said, putting a very strong emphasis on 'later', so that everyone would get the hint, unfortunately the boy did too.

"You can't just decide something as big as this about me and then leave me out!" Madara angrily shouted. A glare from Fugaku made him shut up.

"Come with me, boy. I will escort you to your room and then we'll deal with all the formal things tomorrow as it is already very late."

But it had been early morning when he had met Hashimara, to be knocked out that long because of a stone was very…embarrassing.

Fugaku had already stood up and instinctively Madara did too, he had always been told to do as the clan head wished and now it had somehow became a part of him to listen unconsciously to him. If Fugaku was surprised by Madara's instant obedience, he didn't show it.

They left the room without any further comment and there was silence while they walked. There were so many things Madara wanted to ask, he was so confused and he hated it but he knew that now was not the time to ask and hopefully he would be filled in later. If not, he'd have to…change that.

Now that they had left the building altogether he could see that they were in a village. Wait, since when did the clan lived in a village, it was dangerous to just settle in when the Uchiha still had so many enemies! The clan's location was kept secret and often they inhabited uncomfortable but very good hiding spots. But living in a village was like shouting to the world: "Come here! We are right here! Come and wipe out the entire village so that the Uchiha clan won't be a problem for you anymore!"

His head started to hurt, perhaps he should sleep over this and then, starting tomorrow, he'd solve this mystery piece by piece.

Time passed very quickly and in a blink of an eye, Madara was suddenly in a comfortable bed, Fugaku left and the door was closed. And equally fast his eyelids started to drop and for now he was dead to the world and the whole mess he had landed himself in.

Fugaku tiredly made his way back to the conference room, only peeking for a short moment in Sasuke and Itachi's room, before he left his house again. It would be hard to convince the rest of the clan of his plan. Sighing, he thought: _This is going to be a long night._


	3. Why Are There No Bushes?

**But I AM Madara! – Why Are There No Bushes?**

**A/N:** And again thanks for the amazing reviews and the people who have put this story on their alert list and/or favorite this story, you can't imagine how happy I am! And after skimming through the last chapters I've noticed that a huge part of the current plot is much about people figuring out the reasons and whys of how Madara got there.

I'm sorry if this gets repetitive after a while but until he discovers the real cause for his sudden displacement, he'll keep wondering about it every now and then as time travel isn't the first idea you have when you find yourself in an unfamiliar environment, unless you have read dozens of fics involving time travel :P (like me). So yeah, anyways enjoy this chapter.

* * *

Madara slowly woke up, expecting to see his little brother sleeping right next to him, only to find himself in a completely unfamiliar room. The dizziness vanished in an instant, panicked, he quickly got to his feet and took out one of his kunais, looking for any threat. It took several moments before he remembered the latest events. Taking a deep calming breath he plumped on the bed again and threw his face into the surprisingly soft pillow. Right, he was still in this weird Uchiha clan and he still had no idea where he was. Had his father and brother already noticed that he was gone? Most likely.

Yesterday, he had felt so confused about this whole thing and he had desperately wanted to find answers to his questions, however, as interesting and intriguing as this whole matter was, there were still more important things. He couldn't believe that the thought had only occurred to him now but the panic and shock and confusion were most likely to be blamed.

Madara had to go back home and find his family and the clan he knew, finding out the true identity of this clan would come later. And this adoption thing was senseless too, he already had a perfectly fine family to which he needed to return.

With a jump, he was through the open window and out of the house and softly he landed on the ground, right before… Fugaku.

"Having a morning walk?" Fugaku asked, raising one of his eyebrows.

"No, I wanted to return to my family," Madara replied sincerely, after all, everyone already thought that he was a spy and it wouldn't make things better if they caught him lying. Now he could only hope that the clan head would let him go.

The calm mask finally began to crack. "F-family?" Fugaku sputtered, shocked.

"Yeah, my blood relatives, the ones I spent my whole life with," he explained slowly. "They have probably noticed that I've gone missing."

"But I thought that you had no family?" the old man said, the confusion evident on his face.

"I never said anything like that, you simply assumed. But I guess that my father and little brother aren't on this weird register either so I won't tell their names." Giving his own name to a stranger was one thing but giving the names of the ones he hold dear was a wholly different matter and even if the suspicion would grow because of this, he didn't care. He still knew too little about these people to actually trust them, even if they hadn't caused him any harm until now.

"Are they…Uchihas?" Fugaku inquired sharply, his eyes were narrowed to tiny slits.

"Yes, they are," Madara answered, when suddenly a realization hit him. It made sense! Ha, he wasn't called genius for no reason.

Fugaku noticed how the boy's face suddenly lit up and curiously and confused, he asked: "What's the matter?"

"The clan split up!" Madara exclaimed loudly, startling the birds near them. When Fugaku's expression became even more confused, he elaborated: "I suppose that either a member or more of your clan or some of mine defected and went away, forming their own Uchiha clan. That would explain why there are two Uchiha clan in existence!"

For a moment Fugaku looked like a gaping fish when his mouth opened but no words came out, however, he quickly gathered his wits again and in a toneless voice he said: "What?"

Scowling, Madara elaborated even further. "Look, when I woke up in the middle of a group of people who claimed that they were the Uchiha clan I was confused as hell, because I didn't recognize any of you from my clan."

"From _your_ clan?" Fugaku repeated, his eyebrows knitting in confusion.

"Yeah," Madara confirmed, nodding his head, "Until now I've been living in a clan which is also called Uchiha and the more skillful of them also are in possession of a Sharingan…" he trailed off, not sure how to continue and hoping that the man finally got it.

And fortunately the clan head's eyes widened in realization. There was a sharp intake of breath as the whole magnitude of those words and their implications had reached him. "T-that's an unforeseen… development," he gasped, looking very shocked and astonished.

"Yeah, it is," Madara agreed, although he seemed to take this in far better. Not only because he was the one who came up with this but also because his irritation grew stronger and stronger due to the man not finally letting him go.

He could only be properly surprised and shocked about this new revelation when he made sure that his family, especially his little brother, were alright and when he assured them that he was fine too and that there was nothing to worry about.

Madara briefly considered just running away but quickly dismissed it as he was still in this other Uchiha clan's territory and him making it safely out of there was very unlikely. However, it would make him feel much less annoyed and impatient if the man finally said something, instead of simply staring at some unknown point in the sky, apparently contemplating his words.

After what seemed to be an eternity in which Madara fought against the urge to yell or hit something to let off steam, Fugaku finally spoke up, wearing an unreadable expression again. "Are you telling the truth or is that simply part of your cover?"

Madara didn't know whether to just jump off from a cliff and be done with it or kill the man for being so goddamn annoying! He bet he'd get these wrinkles under his eyes, just like his father, from all of this stress.

Unaware of Madara's inner turmoil, Fugaku continued: "I find it very unlikely that no word of such a clan has ever reached our ears and-"

"That's why I said they went away, _far_ away," Madara interrupted, having finally reached his limit.

"You didn't say the last one," Fugaku couldn't help but point out, being gleefully amused about the fact that there was someone who was even more frustrated about this whole 'boy suddenly in the middle of our conference room' thing.

Any composure or good manners Madara still had flew straight out the window. A vein as huge as his fist popped on his forehead and probably waking every single inhabitant of the Uchiha district up, he shouted at the top of his lungs: "Goddamnit, old man! Just let me get the hell outta here or I will burn every single thing in this fucking place into tiny, little crisps!"

"Is this a threat?" Fugaku asked calmly, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes despite the serious tone.

Madara did in fact bang his head against the nearest hard thing, which turned out to be the tree growing right next to the clan head's house, out of sheer frustration, repeatedly.

After his head started to hurt so much that it actually drove away the headache, Madara turned to Fugaku who looked completely serene, although inwardly he was probably laughing his ass off. Shoulders slumped in resignation, he said in a defeated voice: "How about you do all those formal things you have to do and then let me see my family and if you really need me that badly I can come back again, after ensuring about my family's wellbeing and make sure that they won't worry about me. I can say that's some sort of long-termed mission or something like that."

As long as it didn't kill him were the words left unsaid but right now Madara was willing to compromise as long as he was allowed to return to his family for at least a short while. It was not the first time that he hated this weakness that now made him practically _beg_ for allowance to leave. If only he was stronger, he could just wipe their asses and go home, humming a happy tune or whatever.

Becoming serious again, Fugaku considered this offer. "And what will ensure that you actually return or proof that you don't go to the person who has hired you under the pretense of visiting your family and deliver information and then return only to spy further?"

"Then…then have some of your men sent to come along and watch my activities during my visit!" Madara shouted hotly, barely believing his own words. Had he actually said that? Kami, he was more desperate than he had believed himself to be. Bringing some foreigners to his family and thus into Uchiha clan's (his Uchiha clan) territory wasn't exactly the brightest idea to put it mildly. His clan would kill them on the spot, proclaiming him a traitor. Madara gulped. This was a scenario he wished he would never have to experience.

Fugaku seemed to share the same train of thought. "And be responsible for the possible death of my men at the hand of your supposed 'Uchiha' clan? I don't think so."

"Then how about…" Madara began, begging his mind to provide him with a good plan and thank kami, it did. "Well, they could turn on their Sharingan and wear the clan symbol which, as far as I can see, they already do, I am pretty sure my fellow clan members would first interrogate us, as their curiosity is surely piqued after seeing unfamiliar Uchihas with the Sharingan. And after I've told them my theory, everything will end…just well?" he said, smiling unsurely. Not one of his best plans, he had to admit.

"That could actually work, under the assumption that you are sincere and don't plan to lead my men into some kind of trap and swiftly take off to who knows where, with us being unable to track you down while you count the money you have received with your gathered information," Fugaku said rather acidly, a huge frown etched into his face.

It had to be some kind of record, not even the combined powers of Hashirama and always living with the fear of knowing that the ones you hold dear could die any second had managed to make him lost his composure so many times in such a short span of time. He mentally started to list every taijutsu move he knew of as a means to calm down. He succeeded with that, more or less.

"I'm pretty sure that you and your advisors will come up with something that will make us all happy. Meanwhile, you finish whatever you said yesterday you wanted to and I will… just wait. But I won't wait for long, one or two days is the max!" he quickly added. Surely nothing bad could happen in one or two days during his absence, could it?

Finally, the clan head found no reason to object and agreed under the condition that the boy was to remain on the Uchiha compound.

"Can't you at least extend the area I'm allowed to freely walk in to the whole village?" Madara whined, no, _demanded_. Investigating the whole village would probably ease the worry and boredom he'd surely feel while waiting for the future plans regarding his 'family visit'.

"Then I'll have to send guards watching your every step to ensure that you won't use this as an opportunity to escape."

Madara nearly winced at that. Being watched for the entire time?! How the hell was his poor bladder supposed to handle it? It was not the first time that he cursed his shy bladder problem. "Is there no other way to make that sure except letting people watch me over?"

Fugaku narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "Why, is that a problem?"

"I don't like people following me around, especially if I can't see them," Madara replied, not really feeling like telling the other Uchiha of his little problem.

Luckily, the clan head didn't press for more and instead seemed to be thinking about alternatives. "Well, I could use that one seal on you…"

"Seal?" Madara asked warily, as far as he knew, nothing good could come from seals.

"It's only a temporarily one," Fugaku quickly assured him. "It will tell me your location whenever I want to check. You don't have a problem with that, do you?"

"No, I don't. It won't have any…side effects, I hope," Madara said, looking out for any suspicious signs the man might make.

"No, there won't be any. It's a relatively easy one and I could put it on you right now if you want," Fugaku said and as hard as Madara searched there was nothing which could give away that he was lying. Too bad that he couldn't use the Sharingan on him. Well, he just had to trust the man on this.

"Alright," Madara reluctantly agreed. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Bare your stomach," came the short order.

Madara raised his eyebrow at that unusual request.

"I want to put it there," Fugaku explained, already starting to form the hands seals required for the seal jutsu.

"Why there?" he asked, still unsure, if that had been a wise idea. Despite his wariness, Madara had already loosened the belt and with one hand he hold the belt and his pants as without the former they would drop to the ground and with the other hand he pulled up his shirt, exposing his stomach. He felt really awkward standing like this and again he began to question his decision.

"I'm sure that you don't want people to see it on first sight and the stomach is a part of your body you can't dispose so easily to get rid of the seal, like, for example, your arm," Fugaku said, he was already on the last hand seals.

Talk about paranoid, Madara thought dryly, although he couldn't help himself but reluctantly admire the fact that the man seemed to think of everything.

The clan head quickly pressed the palm of his hand against Madara's bare stomach and Madara couldn't stop the flinch when his stomach's skin started to burn. However, after a short while the pain ceased and Fugaku removed his hand from his stomach. Madara quickly looked down to his stomach. Where once had been only fair skin, there was now a weird round thing decorating his stomach. It looked like a mix of letters, he did not know of, other signs and maybe even drawings.

"Well, that's a huge thing for an easy seal," Madara noted, frowning at the new seal.

"Seals are always like this," Fugaku said dismissively, regarding the seal too.

Well, Madara couldn't argue with him on that as he wasn't really an expert on seals. Quickly, he covered his stomach with his dark shirt again and tightened the belt. There was a tense silence.

"Well, I have to deal with important things right now," Fugaku eventually said, already starting to take his leave. "I'll inform you if I require your presence." With a last nod in Madara's direction, he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Madara blinked several times before a huge scowl started to form on his face and he angrily kicked a stone which hit the house's wall with a thud. He couldn't shake off the feeling that he had just gotten himself even deeper into that mess and still barely any of his questions had been answered.

Overall, it had been a very shitty day. At least… no, there was nothing good about this whole situation!

o~O ~o

Madara barely noticed where his feet led him and he didn't see a lot of people on his way, most likely because it was still relatively early.

Odd, he thought. Usually, there was not enough time to spare for much sleep, what with the constant battling and the possibility that an attack could be launched on them any second. Perhaps, they really had no enemies to be afraid of.

The people, who did see him, didn't say anything regarding his presence, well, at least not to him. While he did attract curious looks, most likely because no one had seen him before, no one got suspicious of him as he did look like an Uchiha and not like an unwelcomed intruder. Apparently, his appearance hadn't been revealed to the entire clan yet and he wasn't about to change that.

After a while, he found himself standing outside of the compound and he had now a better view of the village or rather, the city, considering the many buildings and the overall size which was amazingly big, although that might only be the case for Madara because he had never been in a city. What now? Sure enough the growling from his stomach provided him with an answer. Time to eat!

After wandering around quite a while, Madara had to admit to himself that he had no idea how he could get his hands on food. There was nothing that he could hunt, at least not inside the village borders and he didn't want to give the old man even more reasons to be paranoid. And not only was he hungry, he was also tired, probably from all this tress caused by the latest events.

Deciding that he was not in the shape to do anything productive anyway, he settled himself under a tree, which casted its shadows over him. Just like the last night, he fell asleep in a blink of an eye.

o~O~o

Why were there so many people and so few bushes, Madara desperately thought to himself while frantically looking for the latter.

After he had woken up to a very empty stomach, he had decided to give it another try and luckily enough, he had stumbled in a…'shop' which sold food. However, after it had been apparent that he had no money or at least money which had any worth in this village, he had been promptly kicked out.

Grumbling under his breath how he would add 'burn this shop to the ground' on his list of things he'd do once he was clan head, Madara had swiftly looked for another shop, all while admiring all of these new and exciting things in this village, maybe, his stay here wouldn't be too bad.

After being kicked out of four shops and two restaurants, where an incredible smell had come from, and swearing vengeance after every rude refusal, he had finally took a seat at a little restaurant called 'Ramen Ichiraku'. The people working there had taken pity on him, when a particularly loud grumble could be heard from his stomach and so they generously had allowed him to have a free meal.

And kami had this noodle soup tasted good! It had been nearly as good as his favorite food inarizushi. After showing them his gratitude and promising to repay this debt, he had took off. That had been about the time his dilemma had started to begin.

Madara had been offered not only quite much to eat but also a lot to drink and now his bladder made this fact painfully apparent.

And wherever he looked there were people! People, people, people. Why were there so many people in this village? Was there no privacy here? Cursing his luck repeatedly, he eventually managed to stumble upon a secluded spot in the village with some nice bushes!

Running as though he was possessed, he quickly loosened his belt and halting before the bushes, he dropped his pants and relieved himself. Oh, that glorious feeling when one was finally allowed to take a piss after such a long while!

However, that glorious moment was interrupted when suddenly a shriek was heard out of the bushes and something blond popped out of a bush. Madara was too startled to move or even to speak.

"Ugh, there is piss on my head!" a young blond boy with blue eyes and weird marks on his face cried painfully loud, trying to somehow get rid of the nasty liquid. Their eyes locked and the two of them, Madara with his trousers down and the blond boy with pee on his hair, stared at each other, shocked and disbelieving.

Right now, the day had just gotten even shittier.

* * *

**A/N:** And finally, the long-awaited encounter between Madara and Naruto begins! I hope it wasn't too weird, I've typed this chapter in the middle of the night, after playing nonstop video games, so yeah that's most likely the reason for this weird ending.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this one and please review, if you could spare some time, see you for the next chapter!


	4. Let's Paint The Hokage Monument!

**But I AM Madara – Let's Butcher…Err Give The Hokage Monument A Nice Touch!**

**A/N:** A big thank you again to all of you who have reviewed, favorited, put it on your alert list or have just given this story a chance. I really appreciate that!

* * *

If one where to walk into this scene, that person would be greeted with a very strange sight indeed. A little boy with blond hair, who was clutching his hair and apparently trying to get something rid of it and another boy, bigger and older than the previous one, with his trousers down and due to shock unable to move.

However, Madara broke out of his stupor very soon and only now did he notice that he was still standing around, half nude, and he hastily pulled his pants up, praying to every deity he knew of that no else had seen him in that very undignified state.

Shooting the brat an angry glare, Madara shouted: "What the hell are you doing in a freaking bush?!"

The sudden noise seemed to also wake the boy up. "Dammit! You're the one who peed on me! And it stinks!" he added, after smelling a flick of his hair and afterwards having to hold his nose.

"Well, serves you right for hiding in bushes and spying around, watching people pee!" Alright, the last accusation was most likely not true but right now he frankly didn't care.

"Don't compare me with jiji!" the boy protested.

"Who the hell is 'jiji'? And if you're not a way too young pervert, what were you doing then in these bushes?" Madara asked, having finally regained his composure again. After all, screaming at a little child didn't really help.

"Jiji is the Hokage and really ero! And I was, was tr-training!" the boy shouted. They weren't even arguing anymore so why did the boy still shout?

"Training?" Disbelief was dripping from his voice. "In bushes? Do you really think I would believe that? And what's a Hokage… 'fire shadow', what's that supposed to mean?" he asked, deliberately ignoring the kid's last remark about one of that 'jiji' 's less admirable traits.

By the look of the kid's horrified expression, Madara realized that he must have asked a really stupid question. The boy's shock quickly turned into amusement, however, and he broke out into laughter. One hand clutching his stomach tightly and the other one pointing rather rudely at him, he said: "Haha, you're really stupid!"

A vein popped on Madara's forehead. And people wondered why he didn't get along with brats…well, with his little brother Izuna being the sole exception, of course.

With the self-control of a saint Madara said with forced calm: "I'm not from here so I don't exactly know a lot about this place so could you please answer my questions?" The brat should better be answering now, after all he was being ridiculously polite, considering the situation.

For a moment the boy looked puzzled, however, it was quickly replaced by some kind of realization.

"You're not from this village? So you don't actually hate me?" The way he phrased it gave Madara a bad feeling. The boy bit his lips, obviously the last phrase had been a slip of the tongue.

"Do you mean to say that the villagers hate you?" he asked softly, his eyes narrowing. While the boy was annoying, annoyance alone was not a reason to hate a child, unless there was something seriously wrong with the village…or with the boy.

The question made the boy lower his head and for a moment he looked as though he wasn't willing to provide a reply at all but after what felt like an eternity, he muttered: "They do but I don't know why. But-" he raised his head, fierce determination was gleaming in his blue eyes, "-I will become Hokage and surpass all the ones before! And then people will respect and acknowledge me!"

A silence followed his passionate declaration. After a while the boy eventually asked: "You don't…laugh?" The surprise and disbelief was evident in his voice and only by looking at the face of his, it was clear that he expected to see Madara bursting into laughter any second.

"How can I, if I don't even know what a 'Hokage' is?" Madara pointed out, crossing his arms.

"The Hokage is the boss of the village and the strongest shinobi, everyone respects him!" the boy finally elaborated. Oh, that's why he expected him to laugh, because he chased after a seemingly impossible goal. Well, the boy didn't know that he had already endured listening to quite a lot of insane ideas, courtesy of Hashimara.

"I don't laugh at people because of their dreams," Madara said, after all he also hoped that Hashimara's silly, little dream would one day become reality. "And there is always the possibility that you might become what you want to be," he added because the boy still looked quite grief-stricken.

What he did not expect was that upon hearing these words the boy's face lit up like a little sun and that a huge grin, which nearly split his face in half, formed on his face. "You really think so?" he shouted delightfully, wide blue eyes looking expectantly at him.

"Umm, yes?" Madara just didn't have the heart to crush the boy's hope and after all what could some encouragement do? He couldn't give it another thought though as he felt warm arms wrap around his waist and suddenly found himself in a bone-crushing hug. That boy was insanely strong!

Gently but firmly (was that the crack of a rip he heard?) he pushed the boy away and quickly said: "Don't take it the wrong way, I, err have a bruise and it hurt like hell when you hugged me." Noticing that his excuse didn't sound very convincing, he hastily changed the topic: "What's your name, anyway?"

"Naruto! Naruto Uzumaki!" Naruto introduced himself. What's with these villagers and their habit to deliver their family name like shurikens? It's as though no one had even bothered to take their time to learn the most basic shinobi rules. Or maybe there was no need for such things here in that village. He immediately discarded this thought, it sounded far too ridiculous to be true. And that name, Uzumaki… he could have sworn that it was a familiar name, some clan from another country... Well, he could think about it later.

"Naruto? What sort of parents would name their child after something ramen-related?" Ramen tasted really good but still naming their child after it… Were they that obsessed with Ramen?

The bo- Naruto looked down to the ground, scowling. "I don't have any parents," he said darkly.

Oh.

"Cheer up, my mother and three of my brothers are dead too!" Madara nearly cringed at his choice of words. Had he really just said that?

For an unknown reason it did cheer Naruto up. Hesitantly, he asked: "What's your name?"

"Madara." Might as well give him his family name too, screw most basic shinobi rules. "Madara Uchiha."

Naruto's eyes widened. "You're an Uchiha?!"

"Something wrong with that?" Madara said, narrowing his eyes, he certainly didn't like the tone the boy had used.

"Well, there's an Uchiha in my class, his name is Sasuke and he's a real jerk and the other Uchihas are weird."

"Weird?" Madara asked, ignoring the remark about that Sasuke. So was there actually something wrong with that clan, after all?

"Uh, it's like they avoid me but not like the other villagers." _Which implies that the other villagers still do avoid him_, Madara angrily thought, not understanding the enmity directed towards the boy at all. "Like they don't want people to see them around me," Naruto continued.

Well, that was an interesting piece of information, now the only question left was why the villagers hated the boy and what exactly about the boy caused the Uchihas to avoid him like a contagious disease but Naruto honestly didn't seem to know so instead he asked a different question which he had wondered about since the beginning of their talk or whatever it was they were doing right now.

"Well, what did you actually do in these bushes? If it's cool I might join in." After all, he didn't really have anything better to do.

Naruto's eyes narrowed into tiny slits and he scrutinized him very closely as if deciding whether Madara was trustworthy enough to be told the secret plan. Apparently, he passed as Naruto whispered, read: shouted slightly more quietly than usual: "I was trying to decide which cans I want to take with me because I can't carry them all."

"Cans?"

Naruto nodded. "Cans filled with color. I want to paint the Hokage mountain!"

Madara frowned. "Hokage mountain?"

"There," Naruto said, pointing his finger at something behind Madara who turned around and raised his head. Oh, that big mountain which hovered over the whole village. How the hell had he missed it? Although, he had been rather focused on the shops and people and bushes.

Four heads were carved into the mountain, presumably the four Hokages. Looking at the one at the very left though gave him a weird feeling of déjà vu. "What's the name of the one at the very left?"

Naruto looked sheepish as he answered: "I dunno. Maybe the instructor said something and I didn't…hear."

It took all of Madara's will power to not shoot the boy a very disbelieving look. How could you not know the names of your own leaders, especially if your ambition was to become one at a later time. It had been a bitch to memorize all the names of the Uchiha's clan heads, the ones whose names had been recorded anyway but nevertheless it had nearly driven him insane. And there were only four Hokages' names to be memorized and not the 257 clan heads he had to!

Despite his indignation, he hadn't missed the one word which was rather puzzling.

"Instructor?"

"Hmm?" Naruto had absently looked at the Hokages' faces, as if he was already envisioning with which colors they would look best.

"You mentioned 'instructor'. Care to elaborate?" Madara impatiently asked.

"They are the teachers of the Academy," Naruto explained.

"Wait, 'Academy'?" Somewhere in his mind a bell ringed.

Naruto gave him an odd look. "Don't you know?"

"Not from this village, remember?"

At his reply, Naruto cocked his head to one side, apparently contemplating about something. "But you're an Uchiha," he slowly began. "Don't they all live here?" he asked, blinking his eyes in confusion.

"It's a long story," Madara sighed, a story he didn't feel like telling the boy. Luckily, the boy didn't press for more.

"So ya want to help me?" Naruto asked brightly, taking out a can out of the bushes and holding it before Madara. Naturally, Madara had some doubts (who knew where those cans had already been?). "Why did you put them in the bushes?"

"Because I wanted to decide which cans I take with me. Can't carry them all alone." The duh at the end was implied.

"Yeah but it still doesn't explain why you needed to do that in the bushes, why not somewhere else where you don't risk the possibility to be peed at?" Madara asked, a smirk was curling on his lips.

Naruto made a face. "Don't want the other villagers to see my secret plan. And people go to the toilet when they pee!"

"Toilet?" Madara blinked, the word felt foreign on his tongue.

Now it was Naruto's turn to shoot him a disbelieving look. "The place where you go and pee, that thing you sit on and then you push something and everything goes away," he slowly explained.

"I see," Madara said, not seeing at all, he mentally added the word 'toilet' on the list of things he wanted to find out, it was gradually becoming longer. "You still haven't told me about that 'Academy' thing," he reminded him.

"Oh," Naruto said, slapping his forehead. "It's the Ninja school where you learn how to become a ninja!"

"And after that?" Madara urged, he couldn't shrug off the feeling that it sounded…familiar.

"Then you graduate and become a Genin!" Naruto shouted, who was now hopping up and down in excitement, probably already imagining being a Genin, whatever that was.

"Alright, and what's a Genin?"

"Genin is the lowest eh …something, then there's Cha-chu…something and then yo-something."

Madara frowned at the lack of useful information but there was something he could figure out from the incoherent jabbering which mainly consisted of ehms and somethings. "So it's a rank system?"

"Yeah, sounds right," Naruto said, tilting his head to one side and crossing his arms. "We had that in the last lesson but I can't remember…"

Madara had already lost tracks of how many times he had wanted to bang his head against something out of sheer frustration. "Just try harder!"

"Uh, something about ranks and missions and AARGH!" Naruto shouted, furiously scratching his head. "Thinking so much hurts my head!"

Madara sweat dropped. From what he had gathered there was a rank system and possibly a mission system too. His eyes widened upon realizing why it had sounded so familiar. It couldn't be… But he had to find proofs first.

"Hey, Naruto, is there a connection between the rank system and the mission system, if the latter exists?"

Naruto tilted his head to the side, crossing his arms and furrowing his eyebrows in intense concentration. At least, he was trying, Madara thought tiredly to himself, resisting the urge to smack the boy or better just throttle him.

"Yeah," Naruto finally answered after what had seemed to be an eternity. "Something with Genins allowed to go on D- rank and C-rank missions and the cho- whatever on C-rank and B-rank missions and then I probably fell asleep," he admitted, scratching the back of his head sheepishly.

_Stay calm._

SMACK!

"Ouch!" Naruto wailed, clutching his aching cheek before angrily turning to a satisfied-looking Madara. "What the hell was that for?" He only received a shrug in response.

Sensing that Naruto was about to do something nasty, Madara hastily added: "Just reminding you to work hard to achieve your goal which includes staying awake in lessons, idiot!" And promptly smacked him on his head, deeming the situation appropriate for doing so.

Naruto angrily scowled before clenching his fingers to a fist and attempting to thrust it into Madara's smug face.

Although Naruto's attack had been unexpected, he quickly reacted, thanks to his reflexes, honed by countless battles. Using the body flicker technique, he Shunshined behind Naruto and grabbed him by his collar, lifting him up.

When the shock wore off, Naruto immediately started to struggle and tried to pry Madara's hand off his collar. When it turned out to be futile, as Madara had an iron grip, he promptly began to kick around wildly, in the process hitting one of Madara's more…sensitive spots.

Naturally, Madara immediately let go and fell to his knees, clutching the aching spot and trying his best not to moan too pathetically. "Bastard," he managed to hiss out through gritted teeth.

"That's what you get for messing around with the Great Naruto!" Naruto shouted triumphantly, sticking his tongue out. Madara immediately felt the urge to smack the boy another time but quickly squashed the thought, he didn't want his dignity to be in shatters entirely.

Slowly and painfully, Madara rose, contemplating whether he would get in trouble for murdering a little brat. Most likely, even if he would do the world a favor. And he still wanted answers, although he started to wonder if it was worth the trouble.

When the pain finally wore off, he slumped back to the ground, cross-legged. This seemed to confuse Naruto, as he narrowed his eyes, but when he saw that Madara wasn't going to attempt anything he sat down too, watching the boy before him intently with his bright blue eyes. Somehow those eyes unsettled Madara, making him nearly flinch uncomfortably.

"Alright, I am sorry for hitting you, although you didn't make it easy, acting like a stupid brat," Madara huffed, crossing his arms.

"You're the stupid one for asking such stupid questions!" Naruto shouted, jumping up again and pointing his finger at Madara. "Even if you're not from the village, everyone knows that stuff, my village is really important and stuff. You must be really stupid for not knowing! You're a BAKA! BAKA! BAKA!" he began to chant, successfully awakening Madara's violent part.

He was just about to kill the little brat, mentally going through the best methods to discard the boy's corpse, when he recalled something the boy had said before.

Killing intention slowly fading away, he asked: "You said something about Genins who take D- and C-rank missions while the rank above, the Cho- whatever, take on C- and B- rank missions. So am I correct when I say the missions they are assigned to are appropriate for their rank and thus their skillset?"

If that was indeed the case…

_I can see it now! A school to train and educate the young children! We'll assign missions that are best suited for their skillset! The teachers can delegate them accordingly! In our village, no kid will ever have to experience the horrors of the battlefield ever again!_

Madara could clearly remember those words as if he had heard them just yesterday. A foolish dream, too good to be true and apparently had realized in the form of this village.

He was jolted out of his musings when Naruto shouted: "I won't tell ya!" and stuck his tongue out. Madara contemplated whether he should rip it off to make the brat shut up. To Naruto's luck, he managed to control himself again and instead said with forced calm: "Just answer the question."

The calmness seemed to freak out Naruto more than any threat or hits he had received, probably because he wasn't used to that. He gulped and then nodded.

Madara groaned and rubbed his temples, the stupid headache had returned with all its glory might. "You know what, let's just paint the faces." He needed any distraction which would take his mind off those troubling thoughts. Was Hashirama somehow responsible for this whole mess, had an idiot somewhere else shared the exactly same dream and had realized it?

He resolved to search for information about the village in general, he was sure that he could find something out at that Academy… after all, it was a place meant to learn, surely someone would answer his questions. But as for now he needed a break, hence him asking to go paint the mountain.

And for some weird reason Madara just knew that butchering the face at the very left would give him great satisfaction…

Naruto was a bit wary at first at the sudden change of mind but he didn't want to pass of the opportunity of gaining a partner-in-crime so with a bright grin he thrusted three cans in each of Madara's hands and also took four cans with him, three paintbrushes stuck out of one of the various cans. Naruto happily bounced up and down, heading to the monument, while somehow avoiding to attract any attention from the villagers, a sign that this was definitely not the first time he had done such a thing.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Madara wondered if joining the blond had been one of his brightest ideas…

o~O~o

Uchihas never felt awkward but Fugaku couldn't find any better word for the situation he was currently in, although it was a rather morbid usage of that word.

He was currently in the Hokage's office, which was located in the Academy, having requested a meeting with the Hokage, which he, naturally as the Uchiha clan head, had been granted.

So here he was asking a man, he planned to overthrow, for a favor. Fugaku was sure that he wouldn't have been the only one to feel the slightest hint of discomfort, if someone else were in his shoes. For the seemingly thousandth time he cursed the arrival of the mysterious boy and the consequences which resulted of it.

_Don't forget that he could prove to be a very useful tool to the clan, as unlike Itachi, he doesn't have any bonds to this village, and if his skill are as great as suspected, he might even easily replace Itachi's role_, he mentally reminded himself.

Granted, it would take some time, until the boy would have managed to gain the trust of the Hokage, but he was willing to modify his plan, after all, some years more wouldn't change things for the worse, as the situation right now with Itachi was rather unstable, if the boy's recent suspicious and bizarre behavior was any indication. He had never truly understood his eldest son but nowadays it felt as though his son was alien to him, nothing more than a foreigner.

He pushed these troubling thoughts out of his mind, he had truly far more important matters on his mind which needed to be handled than asking himself whether he had been a good father to Itachi. The current situation he was in was a prime example of the former.

The Hokage was sitting behind his desk, puffing his pipe and skimming through the papers Fugaku had already filled out, although some lines were still blank as he would meet the boy later to ask him about personal information. The papers were a request to confirm the boy's status as a citizen of Konohagakure and thus allowing him to become a shinobi of the village later on. The adoption of the boy into his clan and family was something he could do himself as he was the head of the clan, he had already gotten the required papers from the responsible authority, which he would also fill together with the boy at a later time.

The old man frowned. "Another Uchiha clan? Its foundation must have happened a long time ago, if even you, as the clan head, have never heard of such a clan existing. Are you sure that this isn't just the cover of a spy?"

"Hokage-sama," Fugaku said, declining his head slightly. "I assure you that we had our doubts too at first. But we found no signs that he was lying so either he is telling the truth or someone manipulated into thinking that it is the truth he is speaking of. However, I have made sure that he won't escape from the village and I have managed to compromise with him. He is willing to stay in this village, if he is allowed to visit his village for the last time, telling them of his departure."

"So does the boy actually want to stay here?" the Hokage asked, rubbing his goatee absently.

"I am not sure," Fugaku said, knowing that outright lying to the old man was foolish. "However, as you have already said, there is still the possibility that he might be a spy so letting go of him entirely would be very risky."

"So what of him going to his family for the last time?"

"If it is indeed his family," Fugaku said. "Well, I am not quite sure how to advance as sending men to watch him might turn out to be a trap and a means to escape for him."

The Hokage frowned again which deepened his wrinkles, apparently contemplating the complicated task at hand. After several minutes of silence, he let out a sigh. "Well, I cannot think of any better solution than this one."

"Which would be?" Fugaku impatiently asked, momentarily forgetting to show proper respect towards the Hokage.

"I will send some of the ANBU with him and order them to kill him at the spot, if it turns out to be a trap, so that he won't be able to at least relay his information to any enemy force. I have utter faith in their skills for being able to do so and then return safely back. Denying the boy's wish wouldn't benefit any of us, as he would most likely start to cause trouble then. Which reminds me do you have also made sure that he has no means to possibly send a message to anyone?"

Fugaku had been about to agree with the Hokage's plan, when the question made him freeze_. Oh shit…_

The Hokage sighed once again. "Judging by your expression, I suppose not. Then I will-"

Whatever the Hokage had wanted to say was cut off, when the door suddenly opened and a frustrated and angry Chuunin entered. He bowed deeply, after he had caught his breath again and quickly began: "I'm sorry for interrupting your meeting, Hokage-sama. However, the fo- Naruto has once again pulled off a prank. This time he graffiti the Hokage monument."

The Hokage put down his pipe in favor of rubbing his temples. It was not the first time he wished that Naruto had inherited more of his father than only his looks.

"And it seems he has someone helping him," the Chuunin swiftly continued his report. Hiruzen raised his eyebrows. Well, that was new.

Curiosity getting the better of him, he went up to the roof, where one could see the mountain from below as the Academy was built right before the mountain, a confused Fugaku, who was wondering whether they hadn't more important problems to deal with, such as a possible spy giving information to an enemy, following him.

When they arrived, they saw that there was already a crowd of ninja yelling at Naruto and his supposedly friend at the top of their lungs. The two pranksters were respectively held by a rope so that they could paint and didn't risk to fall down at the same time.

As for the Hokage monument itself…

Each of his fellow Hokage's faces was covered with graffiti. Naruto was currently giving the nosebleed of his father (although the boy didn't know of this fact) the last touch, while the other boy with spiky, black hair was currently busy drawing something rather…vulgar on the Shodame's right cheek.

He could hear a groan coming from beside him and out of the corner of his eyes he could see Fugaku burying his head in his arms, muttering something under his breath about brat, want to strangle, nothing but trouble and kami-sama, what have I done to deserve this.

It was an unusual sight to say the least, as Uchiha and especially the clan head never lost their composure like that. Hiruzen absently wondered if it was the mysterious boy's fault as Fugaku never seemed to be fazed to such a degree by Naruto's antics.

He stopped his observations to listen to the shinobis' yells.

"NARUTO! What the hell do you think you are doing?!"

"How dare you, brat?!"

"Who is that boy next to him?"

"Is it an Uchiha?"

Hiruzen's eyes widened in realization. So that was the foreign Uchiha boy. However, he couldn't help a little smile forming on his lips, when he saw Naruto sticking his tongue out, causing the mob of shinobi to rage even more, and then giving the Uchiha boy a high five. And his smile widened only further when he heard the dull bang of Fugaku's head colliding with the wall.

That boy, Madara was his name (what an interesting choice of name), might turn things for the better with his arrival, well, for Naruto at least, he chuckled quietly to himself, as he watched Madara destroying every bit of masculinity the Shodaime's face still had. For some reason, the boy particularly enjoyed blemishing the village founder's face.

The two boys once again high fived and laughed loudly in unison, as the shouts became even louder and more angry. It was the beginning of a wonderful friendship.

* * *

**A/N:** I hope little Naruto wasn't too ooc, I wanted him to speak more accordingly to his age but I already have problems with dialogue without adding even more difficulties so I didn't.

And sorry for the story's slow pace, but I'm the sort of writer who can't progress things quickly without making them seem rushed, so I apologize if it annoys you.

Nevertheless, I would be grateful for any advice you may have (hint, hint) as I know my story is full of errors and I would be more than happy to fix them.


	5. Sharingan Kills Off Any Sense Of Humor

**But I AM Madara! – Sharingan Kills Off Any Sense Of Humor**

**A/N:** Unusual fast update for me. I spent half of the Saturday night typing this chapter so its quality might not exactly be the best. I will go through it tomorrow, after I have slept enough.

For those of you who are asking me questions regarding the plot, especially regarding later development, sometimes, I'm not sure if you actually want your questions to be answered or if it's just rhetorically, but just to be safe I will answer them so if you absolutely don't want to be spoiled, I recommend including this in your review. I feel a bit stupid for needing something like this but I hope you don't mind.

And it might interest you that I haven't a planned out plot. There are some things I plan to write about and I even have a plausible end but this can all change when I suddenly have a totally different idea regarding the plot and most of the times I simply come up with the stuff while writing on the story. So to sum it up, I'm only a little less clueless than you about the future plot.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter.

* * *

Madara didn't know what was worse. Having to clean the faces and thus eliminating all of his hard work, listening to a looong lecture from a random shinobi, whose name he didn't bother to learn, or having to endure the smoldering glare from Fugaku, silently telling him that he should make himself ready for one hell of a lecture, once he returned to the Uchiha district.

To him everything was equally bad. The little bastard, also known as Naruto, had managed to sneak away, so he was the one who had to deal with the trouble which had ensued afterwards, although they assured him that Naruto also wouldn't get away with it. So he luckily only had to clean the Shodaime's face as this was the only head he had blemished.

He dutifully scrubbed the paint away with a sponge under the watchful eye of a shinobi who stood guard to make sure that he didn't make a run for it, which sounded more and more appealing as the minutes passed by and slowly turned into hours. Damn Naruto for choosing waterproof paint!

Madara sighed. He knew it had been a bad idea but for some reason he didn't regret his decision as much as he ought to. "Don't fall asleep!" a voice below him snapped, jolting him out of his daze and making him roll his eyes. Not only was this work awfully monotone, and his arms started to slowly ache too, he had been also subjected to one hour of boring lecture about rules, responsibility, honoring the Hokages who had given away their life to the village and yada yada yada.

Hell, he wasn't part of the village, not yet anyway, so how was he supposed to know all this crap? Granted, he knew that what he had done along with Naruto wasn't exactly right but that's beside the point. It was just a joke nevertheless and they really shouldn't take it too seriously, after all no harm had been done. But then again it might have something to do with the weird behavior of the villagers towards Naruto… He really had to find out the case of it, naturally, after he had found out what had happened after the fateful morning, when the whole disaster had started.

It felt like an eternity, before the ninja was satisfied with his work and had allowed him to go. Happily Madara was about to leave, when he saw a reluctant-looking Naruto making his way to them, another ninja following him closely behind.

Apparently, it was Naruto's turn now to clean up the mess he had done. It seemed that the Leaf shinobi hadn't wanted to take the risk of finding out what would happen if the two of them cleaned the Hokage monument at the same time. A wise decision, Madara thought.

When Naruto caught sight of him, his face immediately lit up and he was about to dash to Madara but was stopped by the ninja behind him, who had grabbed his collar, successfully making him halt.

Madara grimaced at the familiar sight, trying his best to repress the memory of an incident, which had _never _happened. Though it had never happened, he admitted that it would probably hurt like hell, if you get kicked…there and he naturally didn't know that from experience.

He nodded to Naruto and said loudly: "Well, see ya later. Hope you have fun!" He only received a stuck out tongue in response which made him smirk. Served the brat right for proposing that idea in the first place, even if he had joined in of his own accord…

o~O~o

Madara absently walked through the roads of the village, trying to recall which way would take him to the Uchiha compound. Of course, he could have asked for directions but he could clearly imagine how it must have looked like. An Uchiha asking a random villager for the way to the Uchiha district. He would look like an idiot and he certainly didn't want the village to believe that he was stupid too on top of the clan already assuming that he was a moron. And he wasn't sure he was allowed to tell anyone of his unusual circumstances to save face so he was on his own to find the way back to the Uchiha district, when some deity chose to take pity on him and sent him help.

An Uchiha, the same one who had been at the meeting and had been sent to fetch some papers, Shisui if he recalled right, was standing right at a dango shop, which was located near the spot where he was currently brooding. Shisui seemed to have ordered something and was now gratefully receiving a package, in which very likely something delicious had been put, from the vendor and then left the shop, meeting the gaze of Madara.

"Hey!" Shisui said, approaching Madara, one hand clutching the package. "You're the Madara who suddenly appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the meeting, right?"

Madara thought that the answer was fairly obvious and decided to stay silent, which Shisui didn't seem to mind at all. "Shy one, what," he said, laughing good-naturedly. "Well, you couldn't have chosen a better moment to interrupt the meeting. I have nearly dozed off before you suddenly turned up. Must have been certainly the most exciting clan meeting the clan has seen in decades," he happily chatted.

Madara raised an eyebrow, that Shisui guy hadn't seem to appear like such a chatterbox during the meeting but then perhaps it hadn't been appropriate. "Aren't you the slightest bit worried about the fact that I'm currently standing here, having a talk with you, when the whole clan suspects me of being a spy?" he couldn't help but ask.

Shisui dismissed this with the wave of his hand. "I have already been briefed about it by Fugaku-san. You're also on your way back to the compound?" he asked. Madara immediately nodded, grateful that he had now found a way to return to the Uchiha compound.

The two of them walked alongside, Madara subtly following him a few paces behind.

"So on what sort of drugs were you to have gotten the bright idea to butcher the Hokage mountain with the most troublesome brat of the village?" Shisui started conversationally.

Madara had to blink, taking the question in before shrugging and answering: "I was bored."

Shisui nodded in understanding and in an absurdly wise voice, considering the content, he said: "Lesser men have tried to conquer the world for the same reason."

It was in that moment that Madara wondered whether he should just run as far as possible away from all of this madness. Half of the people he had met were crazy so far and right now he even longed for Hashirama, who was at least predictably insane.

"Hn." It was the standard reply for an Uchiha, if one simply didn't know what to say but didn't want to show it.

"Oh, come on," Shisui whined. "I finally thought that I've found a kinsman who recognizes a good sense of humor without it having to dance on a cake and nude and sing _the _song right before him, unlike certain clan members I could name…"

"What do you mean with _the_ song?" Madara asked, having not missed the emphasis put on the word and he also simply didn't know how to address the rest of Shisui's words so he just ignored them.

His question made Shisui shudder, the horror was written all over his face. And Madara couldn't help but wonder why that song was so horrible when Shisui had included it in his talk about good sense of humor.

"You don't want to know. You _really_ don't want to know. I swear my Mangekyo awakened when I heard that song and nearly killed my friend who sung it," he said, the last sentence sounding more as though he had muttered it to himself.

"Mangekyo?"

"Uh, never mind that," Shisui said hastily and added, to cover his slip of tongue (Fugaku would kill him if he heard that he had accidentally revealed one of the clan's greatest secrets to a near-foreigner, even if he was an Uchiha): "So I've heard that you're from another Uchiha clan. How's life there?"

Madara narrowed his eyes at the not so subtle change of topic but decided to let it go. He contemplated how much he should tell him before deciding that there wasn't much which needed to remain a secret. "Well, my clan is a mercenary clan. We're hired to do jobs and get paid for it. Unlike your clan, we don't have a place where we've settled in. Sometimes things tend to get a bit nasty because we always have to watch ourselves for any attacks and the missions we take on aren't exactly easy either, mainly they consist of battling other clans, who are also hired by someone else," he narrated tiredly, despite the harshness of living in his Uchiha clan, he preferred it over this unfamiliar, strange as hell clan, though the village and its food was nice.

"Sounds tough," Shisui commented. "And it sounds an awful lot like how my clan used to be before Konoha was founded. But I suppose, it's not that surprising, if the clan has split up before. Your clan has just continued being a mercenary clan. Do you have really no idea how you got here?" he asked curiously.

"No," Madara scowled. "The last thing I remember was that I was knocked down, when I was meeting with a friend."

"How exactly did you get knocked out? Maybe you were attacked and then kidnapped."

"No," Madara said with such finality in his voice which suggested that there was nothing more to it.

Shisui took the hint. "Did you consume a high amount of alcohol before it happened? The strangest things happen, when you're really wasted, especially if you're an Uchiha and have already obtained the Sharingan. For example, you activate your Sharingan and cast really strange Genjutsu, mainly on yourself and see very bizarre things and once you wake up, if you can remember anything at all, you have no idea what was real and what was not, not to mention all of these weird looks you get from the others afterwards…"

"I take it that you speak from experience," Madara dryly noted. "Besides, I have never drunk before in my life so I can safely say that that's not a possible explanation either."

"You're what 12, 13? I don't think it's a matter of age then, shinobi always grow up faster, mentally at least, probably because our lives aren't that long."

"Yeah, but I don't want to waste my time with such things as alcohol."

"And now my hope of having a fellow clan member with a sense of humor is entirely shattered," Shisui sighed.

"What, because I don't want to drink alcohol?" Madara asked indecorously. Screw crazy people, he had just met a person who was even weirder than Hashirama at his highest levels of weirdness and this thought admittedly freaked the hell out of him.

"No, but your whole attitude suggests a lack of good sense of humor, although you're not half as hopeless as nearly the rest of the clan. If I didn't know it better I would say that the Sharingan kills off any sense of humor because most of them at least understood the meaning of fun before they got it."

Madara was about to tell how stupid the theory of his was, even if it might contain the tiniest bit of truth, when he was suddenly before the entrance to the Uchiha compound.

"Well, looks like we're finally home," Shisui said cheerily. "It was nice talking to you but I have just remembered that I have to give a report to Setsuna-san so bye!" And with the puff of his smoke, he was gone.

Madara blinked in confusion before shaking his head and pushing the memory of this conversation to the deepest depths of his mind, where he had already stored the one memory of the birth of his little brother in which he had accidentally walked in. It was a small wonder that he hadn't awakened his Sharingan upon witnessing that as this was easily the greatest trauma he had ever received and it had took a while before he could look at his mother and his newborn brother without wanting to rip off his eyes or puke the entire content of his stomach.

Deciding that he was entering dangerous territories within his mind, he swiftly made his way to the clan head, being glad for any available distraction for his mind. He had to ask several Uchiha for directions but in the end (he had to leave the compound again to go to the headquarters of the Konoha Military Police Force, where Fugaku supposedly was and also found out that he was not only the clan head but also in charge of this organization, information which might prove to be useful sometime in the future) he stood before the door to Fugaku's room. He hesitantly knocked.

"Come in." Madara quickly entered.

Fugaku was sitting behind a desk, piles of paper were spread all over the desk and the clan head's focus seemed to be fixed on the paper before him, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

When Fugaku didn't say anything, Madara assumed that taking a seat before him, even if the clan head hadn't said so, wouldn't be considered impolite, never mind the fact that he hadn't treated the clan head very politely either in their past conversations.

Fugaku finally looked up when he saw that Madara had taken the seat before him. He put the paper away in a file and gave the boy his whole attention.

"You're sure working hard," Madara noted.

"I'm working on a murder case," Fugaku told him. "And there are no witnesses nor has the culprit left any visible signs which could be traced back to him and all the suspects, who might have a motive for committing this crime, seem to have a foolproof alibi. So you can see that I don't appreciate it that you have even added more trouble to the mountain of problems I already have," Fugaku said icily, narrowed eyes piercing through a nervous Madara who actually wished for a simple lecture now.

"Well, I feel really sorry and I promise that I won't do it anymore so can't we just skip the lecture and proceed with the stuff you need my help with?" Madara suggested.

"You're lucky that I don't have much time, otherwise you wouldn't get off that easily. Though I can't help but wonder. What in the six paths of the sage convinced you that going along with the brat's scheme would be a good idea? And is there any reason why you had taken such a great interest in especially blemishing the Shodaime's face?" Fugaku demanded to know.

"I was bored and I'm separated from my family, in a totally unfamiliar environment, surrounded by another Uchiha clan and I don't even know what the fuck is going on!" Madara snapped. "Can you really blame me when I just want to do something to distract myself, to momentarily forget this… whole mess?" he asked, something akin to despair was flickering in his dark eyes.

Fugaku's expression softened. "I can understand but it still doesn't excuse your behavior."

"Don't worry, it won't happen again!" Madara promised. He couldn't help but grin at the nostalgia of the current situation. It reminded him painfully of the times in which his father, the clan head, had chided him for doing something reckless or stupid or both.

The boy had a funny expression but the clan head chose to ignore it and instead took out the papers regarding the boy's registration as a Konoha citizen and his adoption into the Uchiha clan. He placed them on the desk before the boy and gave him a pencil with which he was supposed to fill the blanks.

Madara looked blankly at the object he was holding, scrutinizing it closely. He had never seen something like that before…

Maybe, that boy was really an idiot and he had just gotten too paranoid over the years, Fugaku decided, while he observed how the boy looked at the pencil as though it was a gift sent from the gods to mankind. "I can see that the pencil holds a certain charm but could you please fill out the papers," Fugaku said through gritted teeth, wondering when the madness would be finally over.

"Well, and how?" Madara asked, looking around for any brushes and ink.

"With the pencil you're holding," Fugaku said slowly, as though explaining a long word to a toddler.

"You can actually write with that thing?" Madara asked astonished, looking at the pencil with newfound interest.

If Fugaku hadn't been in equally stressful situations before he might have broken but as it was he simply closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening his eyes again and snatching away the pencil off the boy's hand. "Look with your Sharingan," he ordered. The boy quickly obeyed and activated his Sharingan, looking slightly confused by the strange order.

The clan head then began to scribble something down on a paper he didn't need any more and then handed the pencil back to a bemused Madara, once he was sure that the boy had watched long enough.

"I hope that you have looked closely and that you're now able to utilize a pencil," Fugaku said. "You can read and write, do you?"

"Of course I can," Madara replied, eyeing the pencil before putting it down on the paper with its black tip touching the paper just as he had seen Fugaku doing it. Writing and reading were, while not strictly necessary for a shinobi, at least the former, requirements if one wished to become a clan head.

Skimming through the papers, Madara began to write the required information down, occasionally asking Fugaku for elaboration. In that fashion the minutes silently passed by, only the scribbling of a pencil could be heard.

Eventually, Fugaku asked: "You still haven't answered my second question."

"What?" Madara said absently, his focus currently on the paper before him.

"Why you seemed so intent on blemishing the Shodaime's face," the clan head elaborated.

Madara simply shrugged in response. "There's no real reason. I just wanted to. Which remains me…" Madara's head perked up and he put the pencil down to meet Fugaku's gaze. "What's the name of the Shodaime?" Naruto hadn't been able to answer the question but he was sure that the clan head could, if he couldn't, well, then he should probably fear for the existence of the village with such incompetent people in charge.

Luckily, Fugaku could provide him an answer. Unfortunately, it wasn't a reply Madara would have ever expected.

"His name is Hashirama Senju, he was the clan head of the Senju clan and he was the one to offer a truce between our and his clans which in the end resulted into the founding of this village," Fugaku said causally, as though he hadn't just dropped a bomb.

Madara blinked. And blinked again. Surely he must have misheard. "What was his name again?" he asked, dread was filling his insides.

"Hashirama Senju," Fugaku repeated, annoyed.

Madara blinked once again, his brain having difficulties processing the information his ears had just received. He blinked once again and then suddenly everything made sense.

Then two things happened.

Madara's jaw hit the floor and he looked as if he was about to faint. Fugaku wondered why the boy looked as though someone had told him to go marry Maito Gai.

* * *

**A/N:** I wanted to prolong this realization moment for as long as possible but then realized that there wasn't a reason why he shouldn't realize it now as enough hints have been dropped and Madara is supposed to be intelligent, so voila the end of this chapter was created.

There is also not much told about Shisui's personality so I took my liberties and portrayed him as a happy-go-lucky oddball, his personality was partly inspired by the fics I have read about Shisui. I hope that he isn't too weird XD

Anyway, please leave a review, constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.


	6. I Did WHAT?

**But I AM Madara – I Did WHAT?!**

**A/N:** Thanks again for the reviews, some really helped me out. And in case some of you are wondering or didn't know, Madara does in fact know that Hashirama is a Senju and vice versa and he has also already obtained his Sharingan, the reason for this will be explained more or less later on.

And sorry if I get some things mixed up with the time line, the pre-canon one is really confusing and inaccurate sometime, at least for me, if there's some huge error, please tell me, so that I can fix it.

I hope you will enjoy it!

* * *

"Here's the report, Setsuna-san," Shisui said, giving the other Uchiha behind the desk a stack of paper. It was one of the many rooms for the officials of the Konoha Military Force.

Setsuna flipped through them, eyeing the content critically. "The report seems fine. Unless of course it is only a wretched Genjutsu of yours," he said, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

Shisui only rolled his eyes in response. "Tsk, you should know by now, that, when it comes to duty and work, I never slack off."

"Hn."

"Not that 'hn' again! I swear that if I got a ryo for each 'hn' I hear, I'd be as rich as the daimyo by now!" Shisui groaned.

Sometimes, Setsuna wondered how that brat had managed to become one of the most skilled and most trusted Uchiha within the clan with that sort of attitude, while he had worked his ass off as long as he could remember. But then again life was never fair, the existence of prodigies like Shisui and Itachi made that painfully apparent.

Sighing, he remembered something that Tekka had told him this morning. "Itachi will return from his mission today. From what I have heard, it was a full success."

"What's new? Would you expect anything less from Itachi?" Shisui asked rhetorically, running his fingers through his hair and watching absently a bird feeding her children through the window.

Setsuna only remained silent, knowing that there was nothing to add. There was silence as Setsuna was reading the report with a frown etched on his face, while Shisui was content watching the birds, humming tunelessly.

Eventually, Setsuna broke the silence with a cough, raising one of his eyebrows which made Shisui look at him questioningly. "How is it going?" At the young Uchiha's blank look, he lowered his voice and hissed angrily: "Do I have to spell it out for you? The mission assigned to you which entailed keeping an eye on Itachi!"

Shisui turned away, gazing out the window. "Oh, that," he said, as though he had completely forgotten about it.

The palm of Setsuna's hand had a loudly encounter with his face. "You must be joking," he groaned, rubbing his temples.

"You know that I'm always dead serious," Shisui chirped cheerily, when suddenly, as though there had been a switchover in Shisui's behavior, he turned serious, which immediately alerted Setsuna. It was common knowledge that Shisui only became serious whenever one of the clan or village was in real danger. Seeing as he couldn't spot any threat, it made him even more nervous, his muscles tensing, his hand itching to the shurikan holster, which, as common by the shinobi, was strapped to his leg.

Naturally, Shisui noticed the way Setsuna made himself ready for a fight, anticipating enemies charging in any second. Shisui let out a soft laugh, earning himself an incredulous look.

"There's no need to take up a fighting position. I merely wanted to tell you about my current observations," he elaborated, still chuckling lightly.

Slightly embarrassed about his too quickly made assumption, Setsuna relaxed. "Well, then tell me."

"Itachi has, as you must have noticed, devoted most of his time to the ANBU, which is only natural, even for people twice his age the first years at the black ops are pretty tough and if he wants to get promoted, which would be a fortunate development for the clan and our 'plan', he cannot make a half-assed effort," he said quietly, inwardly amused by the twitch of his fellow clan member's eye muscle due to his unprofessional reporting. Little things like these made his efforts worth.

"Nevertheless," Setsuna argued, "it is still suspicious. Have you noticed any encounters between Itachi and any of the village's operating forces or their subordinates which might have relayed their messages?"

"No," Shisui said firmly. The lie slipped so easily off his tongue.

It said a lot of how trusted the young Uchiha was that Setsuna immediately believed him, despite him being the best friend of the one he was supposed to watch. Indeed in the usual case, Shisui would do his work correctly, even if it was his best friend, however, there was one thing preventing him from doing so. It felt utterly wrong.

He knew of the coup the clan was planning, he knew what the possible consequences might be and he knew that Itachi knew them too and he knew that his best friend wouldn't just stand by idly and go along with the clan's plan, it would be against everything Itachi stood for and the same applied to him. He loved the village as much as his father had, Kagami, a proud subordinate of the Nidaime, Tobirama Senju, and every part of him screamed at the mere thought of raising a hand against it.

The coup wasn't the right way to deal with the problem, however, nor was a massacre of their clan. Hokage-sama was desperately trying to figure out a way to handle it and find a possible solution without shedding any innocent blood. It was Itachi's job to buy as much time as possible, but eventually the coup would occur, if a peaceful solution couldn't be found. However, before the coup could happen, Konoha would strike and it didn't take a genius to figure out whom they would use to clean up the mess.

The only thing he could do now was to buy Itachi as much time as possible and to have faith in the village and the Hokage's decision. And if everything else went entirely downhill, well, he wasn't called the most skilled Genjutsu user of the Uchiha clan for nothing. It could backfire, sure, but he was willing to take the risk, if it meant protecting the village.

Shisui didn't know what Fugaku-san had in mind with that Madara boy but he was sure that it had to be connected to the coup, now if only he could figure out if the boy would be the last step before the coup happened and thus war or if he could prove to be the key to the village and Uchiha clan's salvation.

He liked the kid but his sudden appearance gave him a massive headache and he really didn't need that, after all, he had a village and clan to save.

o.O.o

Fugaku had already lost count of the many times he had wished that the boy simply had never stepped into his life as this would certainly make his life easier or at least it would spare him the great headache he was currently experiencing.

Out of the blue the boy had suddenly started to scream at the top of his lungs, shouting 'KAI!KAI!KAI!', black tomoes whirling madly in his blood red eyes. Apparently, the boy was suddenly under the impression that he was under a Genjutsu. He didn't know what brought up the sudden breakdown (certainly, not because of him mentioning the name of the Shodaime) and to put it bluntly, he had no idea what the hell was going on or what he was supposed to do.

That was when the boy suddenly ceased his mindless screaming, Sharingan still activated and something akin to despair and denial flickering in them.

Even though Fugaku was the father of two sons he never had to face the task of comforting a terribly frightened kid (and that was really how the boy looked in his eyes right now) before. If anything like that had occurred to his sons too, Mikoto had most likely handled it on her own without telling him a word about it, not that he had particularly wanted to know.

Fugaku was many things, although being open about emotions or, as his eldest son's best friend often called it,' getting all touchy-feely' definitely didn't belong to these many things. So he awkwardly put a hand on the boy's shoulder and as softly as possible, he asked: "What has happened?"

The words seemed to have made the boy snap out of his daze. His expression immediately became blank, emotions being tightly locked away. It bore an eerie similarity to Itachi. "I'm alright," the boy said, not even a shred of emotion belying his words.

Fugaku decided to not press for more, if it later proved to be important, he'd ask him then, it didn't look as though he would get an answer anytime soon.

"Let's finish this matter," the boy suggested. Fugaku nodded curtly and swiftly they went to work again, momentarily forgetting about the incident.

As soon as they were finished and the paper were safely put into a file, he dismissed the boy, as he still had much work to finish. The boy left very quickly, leaving the clan head alone, who couldn't help but wonder if he should let someone supervise the boy as the mental state he was in seemed to be…fragile.

However, his musings were rudely interrupted, when one of his officers, Yakumi, barged in, excitedly telling him that they were on to something, which might give them crucial hints about the murderer's identity. Any thoughts about the boy quickly vanished, as Fugaku stood up and followed Yakumi, on the way asking him to brief him about the details.

o.O.o

Madara was unsure of what he should think about the whole situation he was currently in. Loss was something he had experienced as long as he could remember, he didn't even remember his oldest brother's face…

He forcibly shoved these thoughts away. Now was not the time to think about the implications of his unexpected displacement into the future. If he were to think about them… He had only had allowed himself to think about it for a short time and look at what had happened, he had nearly lost it in the clan head's office. Now the thing which he needed to do was to keep a level head. So he'd just regard it like any other mission, which required him to assemble information. After he had confirmed that crazy theory of his, well, then he supposed he could allow his emotions to catch up with him, whatever that implied.

Time travel. He was in the future. It sounded ridiculous and impossible. How was it possible? How had he travelled into the future without his knowledge? Was there any purpose behind it? And if yes, what was he meant to do?

While he was mentally going through the possible explanations, he slowly made his way to the Academy. Naruto had shown him the building earlier and he was pretty sure that he had remembered the directions correctly. No one would find it suspicious if he asked one of the instructors for a short history lesson.

o.O.o

"Oi! Aren't you that boy who helped that Uzumaki brat with his latest prank?" an instructor asked loudly as Madara walked through the hallways of the Academy, unsure of how to proceed. Fortunately, it seemed as though the solution had been handed to him.

Wait… Uzumaki brat? Realizing why the name had sounded so familiar before, he barely resisted the urge to slap his forehead. Of course, the Uzumaki clan! Known for their mastery of seals and distant relatives and close allies to the Uchiha clan's greatest enemy, the Senju clan. How could he have forgotten? Well, if his theory were to believe, he could probably blame it on the fact that time travel wasn't good to his mind or memory.

But wasn't one of their most noticeable physical traits their scarlet red, straight hair? And Naruto had hair the nearly opposite of it: spiky, blonde hair. However, why should he lie about his heritage? Then Madara remembered that he could very well be in the future and that the possibility that the one or other Uzumaki had gotten together with a blond, spiky-haired person wasn't that farfetched. That result would be one Naruto Uzumaki, why the Uzumaki decided to…breed with clan outsiders he wasn't sure he really wanted to know.

Perhaps they had been on the edge of extinction and desperately needed more children or it had been something entirely else, involving a feast, alcohol, invited foreigners, some place fit for two and urgh, he had probably given himself mental scars right now.

"Are you alright?" the voice of the instructor snapped him out of his stupor. He was eyeing Madara with more worry than anger now as Madara's skin had taken on a color which couldn't be possibly considered healthy.

"I'm alright," he choked out, pushing the bad mental images away, over the years he had become very good at shoving away the things he didn't like, if that hadn't been the case… Madara was unsure of how he would have been able to cope with all of this.

"I see," the instructor said, his expression slowly beginning to become sour again. Like the other shinobi Madara had seen in this village, he wore a flak jacket, which as he noticed bore the symbol of the Uzumaki clan and under it blue pants and a blue long-sleeved shirt which also bore the Uzumaki sign. What had the Uzumaki clan been up to to also breed brown-haired Uzumaki.

Now that he thought of it quite a lot of the shinobi wore the Uzumaki symbol, to be more exact, nearly all of the Konoha shinobi he had encountered so far, bare the Uchiha clan. The village's shinobi couldn't possibly consist of so many Uzumaki?

A hand waving before his face jolted him out of his rather disturbing thoughts. "Tsk. Ignoring me, what, brat," the instructor growled.

"Uh, sorry," Madara lamely apologized and while he was at it, he continued his apology. "I'm also sorry for causing such a ruckus with my…action. It seemed like a good idea at that time." He bowed formally as his father had once shown him.

The instructor's face considerably softened and he slapped the boy on his shoulder, making him nearly stumble. "Well, kids your age have the most reckless and stupid ideas, especially the boys. Well, looking back at the things I have done at your age…" he let out a laugh. "Well, better not think about them." He paused, regarding the boy before him very closely and then lowered his voice.

"Though I would advise you to keep away from Uzumaki, only trouble's coming from this brat."

"I think I know best with whom I want to associate with," Madara said rather coldly, no one, not even his own father, could order him to stop being friends with anyone, although his father hadn't known about his friendship with the Senju boy in the first place. Something inside him ached at the thought of his father, Tajima, and his friend, Hashirama. He quickly put his mind back on the current issue he had to deal with.

"Hn, if you know what you're doing, I won't stop you," the instructor said, crossing his arms. "Is there any reason why you are wandering around here?" He narrowed his eyes in suspicion, no doubt, thinking that Madara was up to no good again.

"I wanted to ask about the history of the village's founding," Madara said, only noticing now that he didn't even know of the village's name, if it had one.

If anything, this only raised the man's suspicions. "Why would you want to know about it? After you have practically spit on one the most important parts of the village's past, the Hokages who helped build, flourish and protect this village?"

Inwardly, Madara winced at the way the instructor had called his little prank. He hadn't meant for it to come across like that. After all, he had a healthy dose of respect towards the dead.

"That wasn't my intention," he assured the instructor. "And as a sign of good will, I am attempting to show that I do respect the Hokages, the leaders of this village, with trying to learn of their grand deeds, starting with Shodaime-sama who has founded this village."

The instructor snorted. "I wonder what the Uchiha do to make their children talk all fancy and eloquent. But even for an Uchiha, you're pretty good at wording the things oh so nicely."

Madara only smirked in response, a clan head's weapons was not only his kunai or his eyes in his clan's case but also the words. Sometimes words could have a greater impact than even the strongest jutsu and it was not something to be taken lightly, thus the reason why his father had shown him the arts of speech, ever since he had learned his first word, which to his father's dismay and various other clan member's great amusement had been 'dick', after he had overheard an Uchiha insulting a Senju as such.

"Well, I suppose it won't do any harm to fill your head with useful things," the instructor whose name he still not knew said. He turned and with his hand gestured Madara to follow him. He led them to an empty room in which tables, seats and at the front a blackboard on the wall, at its front being a podium, could be seen. The instructor slumped into one of the seat. Madara took one with considerably more grace, which made the instructor roll his eyes and mutter something about 'clans and their need to act all high and mighty' which Madara ignored as he wanted to get the information as fast as possible.

"Well, where to begin. I suppose I should start with how things were before the village system was introduced."

Madara knew only too well of those times, having been a part of them only a day ago.

"There were only clans," the instructor continued. "Many of them still exist up to this day, your Uchiha clan included. The clans were mercenary ones, getting paid to usually fight against other clans who were also hired by someone else. Two of the most famous clan who had fought against each other were the Senju and Uchiha clan, those two were said to be the strongest, to the point that only the one clan could hope to successfully fight the respectively other one, which had led to more fights and thus the growing enmity between the two clans.

"The leaders of said clans were Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha, they…" he went on but Madara didn't hear anything anymore except for the weird buzzing in his ears.

_He has been dead since a century!_

_It's rather strange that you happen to have the name of our mighty ancestor, Madara Uchiha._

_Oh, and now your supposed friend is Hashirama Senju, now tell us that the two of you are planning to found a village and the tale would be complete._

Suddenly the words various members of the clan had said made sense.

He had become the clan head of the Uchiha clan (and apparently a very powerful one) as had his friend Hashirama who had become the leader of his clan and it seemed that the two of them had chosen to simply forget the bloody history between the two clans to realize their naïve childhood dream and had formed their village, what…had occurred a century ago. Again, he quickly stomped dead the thoughts which had risen in his mind at the possible implications of that particular piece of information.

Once again his mind went reeling at the sheer unbelievable information it had to process, when yet another realization hit him like a boulder.

How was it possible that history remembered him as the Uchiha clan head who had helped founded the village, if he, 13 years-old and, according to his father, still having a long way before he was ready to become clan head, was currently standing in the Academy of said founded village?

But he must have gone missing! Hashirama could have never founded a village with him, as the last time he had seen him, they had still been no clan heads and the dream of a village had been simply a dream.

For the past century he must have been gone, only now reappearing again, yet during his absence 'Madara' had grown, had become a clan head and had helped found a village. And the possibility that it just so happened to be another person with the same name was slim to none. Although, could it be that the person who was responsible for him being sent to the future had taken his identity for unknown reasons? But that was impossible. Someone would have noticed and while it might have been handy to be the clan's heir of a clan as strong and infamous as the Uchiha clan, someone of such a caliber, who had been able to pull off such a feat, certainly didn't need to pose as a boy to acquire power. And even if that person wanted the clan's support it would have been pretty easy to simply ally up with the clan as the Uchiha clan certainly wouldn't have said 'no' to a powerful asset which might finally put an end to the Senju clan and then return the favor and help the person achieve his goal and also reap the wards then.

So that was out of an option.

What if it had been somehow really him? That somehow a part of him remained while the other part was sent to the future? Or…or was it-

Madara didn't know if it was his imagination but he could have sworn that he heard something crack which maybe, maybe not had been his sanity.

"…thus the village decided to have Hashirama-sama as the leader of Konohagakure and so he became the first Hokage."

Madara had to blink as for one moment he did not know what the man was talking about. Ah, right, the foundation of the village, its name apparently being Konohagakure. The village hidden in the leaves, tsk, who came up with this name, even he was more creative.

"You spaced out, didn't you," the instructor noted, annoyed. Crossing his arms and glaring slightly at the boy before him who scratched the back of his head sheepishly.

"Uh sorry. I uh had to process all of this stuff. Please go on."

The instructor, whose name was Tsuzumi Sarugaku, sighed. He was used to students not listening to him, even if that boy had promised to listen well to show that he respected the Hokages. Respect his ass, but what else was to be expected from an Uchiha?

"Do I have to start from the beginning again?" he asked, exasperated.

"No, there is no need to."

"As I was saying," Tsuzumi continued, annoyance evident in his voice, "the village decided to have Hashirama Senju as their leader and so he became the Hokage. Naturally, Madara wasn't pleased about this development."

Said Madara blinked. Why wouldn't he be? Granted, he'd have accepted the leadership of Hashirama rather grudgingly, but being the one who came up with the idea the Senju had probably deserved it, though the way the instructor had phrased it couldn't forebode anything good. But he would have never expect the following words coming from the man's mouth.

"In fact, he turned traitor and tried to kill Shodaime-sama and destroy the village, using the Kyuubi."

Everything Madara had learned about how a shinobi was supposed to behave, not showing your emotions and so on, swiftly went out of the window as his mind wholly registered the meaning of the instructor's words.

"Wait! I did WHAT?!" Madara cried out, absolutely shocked.

Tsuzumi gave him an odd look.

"Well, you have just interrupted me in the middle of me attempting to tell you the history of Konoha's founding," he said slowly, with no doubt starting to question the boy's sanity.

Madara couldn't care less about people wondering about his state of sanity now, he had definitely more pressing matters at hand. One for example being the fact that he had had…would become, whatever, stark raving mad, because what else could have possessed him to attack everything which he undoubtedly cherish and with the Kyuubi on top of that, strongest of the Tailed Beasts and worse than a natural disaster.

And wait, hadn't been his clan a part of the village already at that point? "Was I, I mean, Madara… drunk at that point?" he asked, clinging on that little, very impossible hope Shisui had given him with his little tale about how bad of a combination alcohol and Uchiha were.

The instructor gave him yet another odd look before slowly replying: "I am fairly certain that Madara had… been fully aware of his decisions."

Madara gulped, how had he turned out like this? But there was still something he wanted and dreaded at the same to know. "How did it end?"

"Madara died and the Kyuubi vanished. Hashirama was the victor of the battle, the place where the battle had taken place, has been called Valley of the End ever since."

He barely managed to stop himself from wincing because getting to know that you would be… were killed by your best friend was slightly disturbing at best and highly horrifying and traumatizing at worst. He wasn't quite sure what it was for him. He couldn't really blame his friend for doing so as he clearly had no other choice if Madara had really turned out to be a threat to the village. His skin turned green at the thought of how many he might have managed to kill before Hashirama had put an end to his insanity.

"Are you alright?" Tsuzumi asked worriedly, once again forgetting his irritation at the boy for not paying attention, the color the Uchiha boy's skin couldn't be considered healthy.

"I'm alright," the boy assured him, his eyes haunted and he immediately recognized that look. It was that look many Genin had when they killed for the first time. Tsuzumi realized that whatever the boy had told him about his wellbeing had obviously been a lie and despite him not really liking the Uchiha clan and especially the Kyuubi brat, with whom both the boy associated with, he was still an instructor at heart and therefor it was his duty to care for the wellbeing of not only the Academy students but also the wellbeing of all the children in Konoha (obviously not counting that Uzumaki brat, because he was anything but a child).

He reassuringly put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "What's the matter? You can tell me, if you want."

Madara barely resisted the urge to scowl, now it was the second time today, was he really that obvious? Apparently he was as the instructor became even more worried at the lack of response.

Softly pushing the hand away, he whirled around. "Thanks for telling me about Konoha. I have to go now," he curtly said before he dashed out of the room, leaving a confused instructor behind who was wondering what was wrong with the Uchiha boy. What did the Uchiha clan do to give each of their children mental issues, he couldn't help but wonder.

o~O~o

When Madara was sure that no one was following him, he slightly slowed his pace, until he was only jogging. He had the key information now, the only thing which he needed to do now was to put this information to use, planning how he was supposed to go on from this point, the way it was expected from a respectable shinobi and future, former clan head.

But there was something he had to deal with before he could do this and that was the past and how it most likely was… forever lost to him now.

He abruptly came to a halt as something akin to a sob was threatening to escape his throat and he doubled his efforts and ran as fast as his legs allowed him to, until he found himself in a deserted place of the village once again, not far away the borders of the village could be seen.

Slowly now, he made his way to one of the tree and crouched down, the shadows of the tree casted down on him. And for once Madara allowed his mental restraints to loosen up to fully accept and see the cold and bitter hard truth.

With him being in far future, everything, everyone he knew was now simply a matter of the past, forgotten and now in a place he couldn't reach yet. Everything which he had fought and trained for, until he'd collapsed from exhaustion, was useless now, as he did it for _his _clan, the clan he knew, the clan he had grown up in. The clan who had called him brat, although he was the clan head's son, until he had proven himself to be worthy to have his name remembered and used. And remembering the faces of this clan was like a slap to his face, because it was the Uchiha clan but it couldn't be because the Uchiha clan would never look at him with those cold, uncaring eyes the way those _foreigners_ did.

His eyes were suspiciously moist in a way they hadn't been for a long time, ever since he had to experience the first death of a brother. And he didn't bother to stop the tears from rolling down his cheeks as there was no father to chide him for doing something as pathetic as that, no Izuna asking him with big eyes what could possibly upset his big brother.

Oh God, Izuna! He was dead! He'd never see his beloved little brother ever again and that was the final straw. He curled himself up to a ball, choking and sobbing and crying pathetically, a part of him sneered at the pitiful sight of him but he told this part to go burn in hell because he had practically lost everything, his clan, his future, his friend, Hashirama, his brother Izuna, whom he had sworn to protect, only to leave him behind in the past…

The guilt of everything of what he had done, of what he'd do, finally caught up to him and he felt like it came crushing down on his shoulders and he gasped at the sudden aching pain in the empty spot where once his heart had been and the burning pain in his _eyes_ as though they were on _fire_.

No, that was not right. Somehow he had managed to remain in the past or a part of him at least, only to turn into something he'd have never wanted to be, an insane monster, using another monster, to destroy the very thing he'd have died for to protect and had ended that his friend had been forced to kill him.

Madara had that sudden urge to laugh hysterically because him just disappearing and returning in the future was better than the alternative and knowing that was too fucking _hilarious._

And deciding that wallowing in pity, sadness or whatever the fuck he was feeling right now, might prevent him from losing it entirely, he continued to cry and scream, cursing this world's unfairness, loathing every god he knew of, because no divinity deserved to be worshipped, if they allowed cruel things like that to happen.

In that blur of sadness, fury, bitterness, _insanity _he didn't realize that his Sharingan had activated nor that it slowly evolved into something entirely else, eyes of power the world hadn't seen for decades.

And slowly time went by as the clock ticked and tears of sorrow turned into tears of furious red blood.

* * *

**A/N:** Gosh, that chapter feels totally out of place (and my writing style turns into something entirely else whenever I write something angsty, I have noticed) and my attempt at trying to maintain the lightheartedness of this story obviously went out of the window now, although things will brighten up next chapter again and Naruto will finally have an appearance again, it is after all supposed to focus on the friendship between the two of them.

Okay, now to the main issue which will without doubt irritate some of you. And that's the Mangekyo Sharingan. I needed Madara to gain it for the future plot and there was really no better time than when he wholly realizes how much he has lost due to his time travel to the future, which is basically everything. And according to Narutowikia to gain the Mangekyo "one must _feel _the emotion of losing a friend or family, as merely killing them or watching them die will not activate it" which Madara obviously did, seeing that he has lost everyone close to him in a way, which I suppose, makes up for the fact that he hasn't done it himself (killing all who are close to him, directly, more or less), which isn't really a requirement, see Obito, or has witnessed it with his own eyes.

Hope it doesn't bother you too much. Please review if there's still something bothering you or something along these lines. I will hopefully update soon.


	7. Yes, I Would

**But I AM Madara! – Yes, I Would**

**A/N:** Bloody hell! Over 100 reviews! I never thought I'd see the day where one of my stories gets so many of them. You guys are really awesome, thanks a lot! :)

Some of you were confused about how past events remained the same, e.g. the fight at the VoE between Madara and Hashirama, although Madara is in the future so I will try to explain it. Well, in the last chapter Madara speculated that the reason might be that a part of him remained in the past, while he, the rest, went to the future, so that through the time travel he somehow split up. If that's the true reason remains to be seen (mainly because I still have no clue). Sorry if that hadn't been clear.

And because someone asked for it and perhaps some of you are wondering about it too, here are the ages of the characters:

Madara – 13 years old

Itachi – 12 years old

Shisui – 15 years old

Naruto& rest of the Rookie Nine– around 7 years old

The setting of this story is one year, give or take a few months, prior to the Massacre, meaning that Itachi is already part of the ANBU and working as a double-spy. Though I'm still not very sure about the pre-Manga timeline, some things are still confusing the hell out of me.

Warning: Great amount of Uchiha-angst at its finest

Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy it^^

Oh and I'm glad that people don't seem to mind the fact that Madara gained the Mangekyo as much as I thought.

* * *

_What am I supposed to do?_

That thought kept floating in is mind, but for all his genius Madara simply couldn't find an answer to it. He wasn't even sure if he should bother at all. After all, everything which he had been supposed to do, which he had strived to do, was gone. Absolutely and totally gone, somewhere lost in the past which without his knowledge had already taken its course and as much as he wanted to was now impossible to change.

Slowly, he rose, deciding that, while it sounded appealing, sitting under the tree, until he found a solution, wasn't the best option. His eyes still felt wet so he rubbed against his eyes, only to discover that his hand was suddenly drenched in blood.

He was too emotionally drained to feel the appropriate shock and panic at the fact that his eyes had been bleeding. Eyes were the Uchiha's tool one had to defend with his life and even after it one had to ensure that it didn't land in enemies' hands. All the lessons were deeply ingrained in his mind, the way it had been in every Uchiha's head (Madara didn't know if it was still the case).

_If something threatens to destroy your eyes, be it acid or a kunai, sacrifice your hand to protect it. It's your greatest tool and thus a target for your enemies. Nothing of you, not even your life, is as important as your Sharingan eyes._

_It's the strongest tool and the greatest weakness to the clan in the wrong hands and your life fades in importance if compared to the safety of the clan. The clan continues to exist, even with a brave warrior less. But it will face great danger, if even one Sharingan is taken._

_If taken captive or certain about your demise by the hands of the enemy, not only are you required to take your life, as is the custom for shinobi, but you must also destroy your Sharingan, so that it will be unable to be retrieved and used by the enemy._

_With great power comes great responsibility._

_The power granted to you by the Sharingan will make you a true member of the Uchiha clan, worthy to wear the crest, the fan, tamer of the fire, but it will also make you a shield to protect that power, a burden you have to take._

_Never forget that._

In his opinion it was an honor to do so, a risk gladly taken and a price happily paid in exchange for the possession of the Sharingan. He liked how the words sounded, powerful, meaningful, nothing to wonder or misunderstand about. Even if they basically said that your life is trash compared to your eyes and that your life would become even more dangerous once you get your hands on them and make sure that other hands wouldn't do so too. After all, it made completely sense to him and how could one disagree if that's what everyone had told you since your birth and which was what everyone in the clan believed to be right and just. And Uchiha rarely made mistakes, especially the clan as a whole.

Madara smiled faintly. His old man had made sure that he definitely wouldn't forget. His smile quickly faltered though. Upon knowing these rules, he should have felt horror that those precious eyes of him were bleeding but he only took it with a shrug.

He felt simply too tired to also worry about that. If anything, it was probably a sign of how great his grief is. It somehow suited. Tears of blood. A hollow laugh escaped his throat. And after he began to laugh, he simply couldn't stop that foreign yet so familiar sound of laughter.

So much for him trying to remain sane, unlike his adult counterpart.

"Madara?" a voice hesitantly called.

Startled, Madara whirled around. Apparently, he had been so deeply engrossed in his dark musings that he didn't even noticed the appearance of another person.

It was Naruto with his blond hair, weird whiskers and those bright blue eyes looking at him with something akin to confusion, worry and shock.

He couldn't blame the boy. Laughing manically, a hand drenched in blood and taints of bloody tears still on his cheeks would unsettle even grown men, not to mention a little boy.

"What are you doing here?" Madara asked, sharper than he had intended to do.

Naruto flinched slightly at the harsh tone but quickly caught himself. In a steady voice he asked, determination glittering in his eyes: "I wanted to see ya again cos I was done cleaning. So I searched for you reaaally long. And then…then I saw you crying and then laughing." The blond looked worriedly at him. "Are you alright?"

Madara wanted to be left alone with his problems. What right had this brat to inquire? They barely knew each other so why should he spit out all of his problems, the cause of his pain and sadness? What use would it be to him if he did in fact told Naruto? The boy couldn't provide him any comfort, that dense, bright, cheeky blond wouldn't understand him. Wouldn't understand the pain of losing everyone, the pain one felt at the realization that one was utterly alone in this godforsaken world.

"Get lost, Naruto! That's none of your business!" he snapped angrily, hoping that the boy would finally leave him be. No such luck. If possible it only strengthened the boy's resolve to stay.

"I thought we were friends!" Naruto shouted in his usual obnoxiously loud voice, though his expression was somber. "We laughed, had fun, pranked people, painted the Hokage heads. Ain't that stuff friends are doing? Iruka-sensei told me that friends have to help each other too and if you're crying you need help," he said reasonably, it sounded very logical to his child mind.

"Who ever said that we were friends?" Madara sneered, only feeling the slightest pang of guilt at Naruto's dismayed expression. This time he didn't apologize. If he was honest to himself, he'd admit that it even made him feel a bit better. To have people feel pain too so that they could understand what he was going through. Sad faces were so much more bearable than bright ones, laughing mockingly at his misery. It w-

A sharp pain erupted in his stomach when a tiny fist hit as hard as the owner of said fist could. His widened, startled eyes met those of Naruto's angry and disappointed ones which were moist from unshed tears. "I knew it!" the boy yelled, pointing his finger accusingly at Madara who was lying on the ground, moaning quietly and rubbing his aching stomach. That boy had one hell of a punch!

"You're just like the others! No you're even worse! You're a liar! You only did as if you're my friend so that ya can say now that you ain't! So that you can laugh at me because I believed you, say that I'm stupid!" At this point the tears were rolling down with no restraint. Clearly, it had been his first time that someone would backstab him in such a way.

Telling him that they had a present for Naruto, only for it to turn out as some kind of junk, wasn't something new for Naruto. But outright pretending to be his friend, only to bluntly ask him to his face when he would have gotten the impression that they were actually friends… well, that was something entirely new to Naruto.

That little hope which had slowly grew somewhere in his chest and had made his insides feel all warm and fluffy was brutally ripped into tiny, tiny pieces. Naruto had never felt that disappointed before in his life. But that disappointment quickly turned into fury. Usually, he'd prank the person in question in revenge but that wasn't an usual case. The older boy before him had done something Naruto couldn't forgive.

So not caring for the possible consequences of his actions, not caring that jiji might look at him with these sad, disappointed eyes or that Iruka-sensei might yell at him or that the villagers would whisper among each other, saying 'as expected of_ that_ child', Naruto lunged at Madara, with his hands clenched into fists. Scowling, he looked down to the teme who looked baffled.

Madara froze as he heard Naruto's exclamation. And he didn't even try to stop the boy when he dashed at him, clearly intending to attack him. How could he have forgotten? That boy was hated by the village and that loneliness and sadness in his eyes, carefully veiled by his bright and happy behavior… he had seen peeks of it and he was aware that Naruto was hiding much more of it from the eyes of the people. Yet, he selfishly had thought that the boy was happy, that he wasn't in pain because of how lonely he felt. To make it worse, he had been the one to deliberately make the pain of Naruto who had done nothing but try to help him grow even bigger.

Right now he felt like the greatest jerk ever and suddenly it didn't seem as farfetched as it had been before that he might have snapped and went on a killing spree. Look at what he had done when he was feeling so much anguish. At least, he hadn't seen any of them dying before his eyes. So what if he had, what if his adult self had watched countless of his fellow clan members die, even when he was supposed to take care of them as the clan head or what if…Izuna had died before his very own eyes, him being drenched in his own brother's blood, unable to tear his gaze away from his brother's empty and dull gaze?

Had that happened to him? Was it because of that that he had changed so much that he could barely recognize himself? Could he truly turn into something as evil and monstrous as his future self had been, because of the loss he had experienced?

And a part of him, even though he wanted to deny it, said in a voice as clear as broken glass: _Yes, I would._

Knowing the possible reason what might have prompted his change made him, instead of feeling understanding or horrified, only nauseous. While Madara had been thinking and coming to the horrible conclusion, he had barely registered the punches delivered by Naruto who was sitting on top of him, punching his fists furiously against his chest. They lacked the first punch's strength and ferocity. It felt more as though Naruto was futilely and desperately trying to lash out not at him but at the unfairness of it all, the unfairness he had to experience in this cruel, cruel world.

He was really an idiot for thinking that Naruto out of all people couldn't understand him and his current situation. As the blond raised his fist to punch Madara again, he grabbed Naruto's wrist midway when it had already descended, making Naruto scowl at the sudden resistance and punch with the other hand, which was also stopped by Madara.

Before Naruto could so much as yell at him or try to aim for his sensitive spot again, Madara rose, now being in a sitting position, making Naruto tumble to the ground, and pulled the blond into a bear hug,

Naruto tensed at the sudden body contact. The only one who did that was jiji and he liked him. That Madara dude definitely didn't belong to his rather short list of people he genuinely cared about and didn't mind being hugged by. He'd have long struggled out of the embrace if it weren't for the fact that the arms wrapped around him were as tight as a grip made out of iron. He scowled, trying his utmost best at ignoring that little part of him, which was but a little, lonely and frightened boy, which enjoyed the hug and the surprisingly warmth exuded by the Uchiha and which wanted to snuggle even closer up against him. Jiji wasn't as warm as him.

Madara frankly had no idea what possessed him to give the boy a hug. The last time he had offered that sort of comfort had been when the last of his elder brothers had died in battle. At this time Izuna had been big enough to realize that he'd never see their big brother again and had cried and cried. Not knowing what to do, he had done the same thing his long deceased mother had done, when he had been little and very sad: he had hugged him. And for some very strange reason, it had not only comforted his little brother but himself. Just as it was in this case too.

The sight of these two boys was perhaps even more bizarre than that of their very first encounter. The two of them embracing each other, drawing comfort out of the other's presence. And somehow, something inside of them was repaired and fixed a little.

It was strange indeed, that those two boys would from this day on share a bond of mutual understanding. Trust and true friendship would come later but nevertheless the fact that this encounter, this…bonding was miraculous, unexpected, wonderfully impossible remained.

In another place, in another time, those two boys would have faced each other for the first time far later, on opposite sides. They would have been as different as day and night and to only suggest that there was something akin to mutual understanding between them would have been laughable and ridiculous, something to quickly dismiss. Not in this time or place though.

After what felt like a blink of an eye, yet felt like an eternity at the same time, they simultaneously broke apart and equally simultaneously both of them leapt to their feet, staring into each other's eyes.

"I'm sorry," Madara finally said. "I just had a very shitty day," he sighed, running his hand nervously through his messy hair.

Naruto nodded in apparent understanding. "Yeah, I had one too." And then pulled a face.

Seeing that, Madara cracked a smile which made the blond in turn smile one of his overly bright grins. Then he hit Madara squarely in his face, making him stumble. Rubbing the bruised spot on his face, Madara reluctantly admitted: "I supposed I deserved that one."

"'Course you do!" Naruto agreed loudly, his grin now positively splitting his face in half.

"Don't push your luck," Madara mock-growled, giving him one of his finest Uchiha glares which only served for Naruto to stick out his tongue.

And just like that their friendship had overcome its first obstacle.

o~O~o

Maybe he was getting too old for this job. Of course, Fugaku was nowhere near as old as Sarutobi but that old man had been supposed to retire for a long time. Unfortunately, none of his sons were in any shape or form ready to inherit the position as the clan head or the police chief (the latter was officially not a position meant to be heritable but as it was in most cases, in reality or unofficially it was).

The murderer had been successfully caught, thanks to a drip of blood which had been far too wide away from the corpse and where most of the blood was spilled and had drawn a keen-eyed Uchiha officer's attention who had come to the conclusion that it might be the murderer's blood as things pointed out to the fact there had been some sort of struggle between the victim and the perpetrator, the former probably managing to hurt his killer before his death. After a quick blood test and comparing the results to already existing files of past criminals, they had luckily found a matching file and discretely they had headed to the suspect's supposed location. The supposed murderer had been charged for attempted murder once but had somehow escaped his deserved punishment with only having to spend half a year in prison. The main suspect was only a civilian though so it had been easy to incapacitate him and then put him under a Genjutsu with the Sharingan, drawing the vital information out of him.

Seeing as the man clearly did not know of any methods against Genjutsu, the information was soon out, proving that the man was indeed the perpetrator, as he knew things only the murderer could know of. The victim's family had been notified and the man put in prison until a proper punishment was decided and yet again another case file could be put in the shelf of solved cases.

It was only then that he realized that he had just used several methods to solve the case which could also easily deal with his problem concerning the boy's identity and the validity of the boy's claims.

As soon as his shift was over (if it wasn't an absolute emergency, he'd never leave earlier and call it a day) he'd go find that boy and drag him to the KMPF headquarters and run a blood test and a memory check and if it was truly confirmed that the boy was who he claimed, well, one problem less, only another hundred more to go.

However, if that didn't work, he might have to rely on the torture and investigation force to get the necessary information out of the boy. The clan head was reluctant to do so, however, if he wished for their help, they'd ask of him what the purpose was.

Lying to them would be foolish and might very badly backfire. And he definitely didn't need Konoha's higher-ups to become even more suspicious of him when they heard that he had lied to the torture and interrogation force or that he seemed to withhold information, which as a fact he was trying to do.

It was bad enough that the Hokage already knew of the boy's existence but it couldn't be avoided if he wanted to use the boy the way he had in mind, for the boy to become a true Leaf nin, the Hokage must approve of this. The only other alternative would be Danzo and his ROOT and hell would freeze over before Fugaku even thought of associating himself with that fork-tongued old fox.

So it also couldn't be avoided that eventually the whole village would hear the news of the arrival of a new Uchiha. A bastard, no doubt, they'd think. And wouldn't it be just lovely if the Uchiha clan would become the main topic of the village's gossip again because of that.

However, he had asked the Hokage to keep quiet about the boy's supposedly true origins as, although it was only Fugaku's guess and attempt to subtly convince the Hokage, Madara didn't want his clan's existence to be known in public. Technically, not a lie as that would be the most likely explanation as to why a clan as powerful as the Uchiha (and he doubted that this other clan's power had weakened in strength since the split, if the boy's abilities were any indication) was not even known in one of the great hidden ninja villages. Luckily, the Hokage agreed to his request, though he wished to perhaps talk with that Uchiha clan to diplomatically ask for a possible alliance, which would be either good or bad for his plans, depending if the other clan had still enough clan loyalty to help and go along with the coup or would remain true to their alliance with the Leaf and become part of the forces which would fight against them.

So seeing the possible outcomes of such an alliance, Fugaku rather wished for no alliance at all. If the situation ever came that the Hokage would be in the position to have a diplomatic talk with the other clan head, he'd somehow have to sway it to his clan's advantage, meaning yet even more things he'd have to rack his brains again. Great.

But returning to the current issue at hand, Fugaku definitely didn't want for any outsiders to know about the important information the boy might hold. If the torture and interrogation force knew, chances were that in half a day that thrice damned council and the Hokage would know too and he'd rather avoid that if possible as he might be able to use that information against the village in the future and perhaps, to come back to the other issue, sway the other clan to his cause.

And he had great faith in his men's abilities, surely he wouldn't even find himself in the position to seriously consider the force's help, right? Then he remembered _that _incident (involving glitter, pink hair dye, a certain brat and many shattered dignities) and suddenly he wasn't too sure anymore. Maybe, lady luck would take pity on him and let everything go according to plan…

Right now Fugaku felt very old and tired.

o~O~o

At the shore of a river, sometime in the past, a boy was laughing hard, having to clutch his aching sides. That expression Madara wore when he got smacked by the stone! Hashirama bit his lip to not burst into laughter again.

It were times like these that he wished that he was a proficient artist so that he could draw that expression and look at the painting whenever he needed a good laugh, which admittedly happened to be quite often recently.

Only then did he realize that Madara was nowhere in sight.

"Madara?" he called. No answer. Frowning, he searched for any signs of his best friend in the surroundings, only to have his efforts proven futile.

But how was that possible? His friend had been right beside him only seconds ago before he was suddenly gone (as far as he could tell because immediately after the 'incident' he had been too busy laughing his ass off).

Hashirama decided to wait, in hopes that his friend was simply calming down somewhere and would quickly return, after he had done so. A hour passed, according to the position of the sun. Even hot-tempered Madara wouldn't need so much time to calm down.

The Uchiha had probably decided to head back home altogether, not wanting to hear his annoying laughter (which he naturally had done on purpose) any second more and would come back tomorrow.

With this in mind Hashirama headed back home too, making a mental note to himself to not tease his friend too much about this 'stone incident'. He snickered, alright, change of plans, he'd mercilessly tease the Uchiha boy as soon as he caught sight of him again.

Madara didn't come next day. Maybe he was still feeling too embarrassed to show his face.

A week passed and yet there was no sight of his Uchiha friend. Alright, something was definitely off and he was going to find out what.

o~O~o

It was strange what sort of effect Naruto had on him. One moment he felt ready to give up entirely, feeling like he could never experience happiness again, the next he felt, dare he say, something akin to hope, that maybe life in Konoha wouldn't be too bad, that the clan would accept him as one of their own and that he could get along with the villagers and find friends (Naruto, he thought, he could consider as one, despite the bruises).

The pain of losing his real clan and family and his friends would stay with him as long as he lived but it didn't threaten to bury him under its weight anymore. Seriously, Naruto could do a living out of it, helping people like that.

It was slowly getting dark and Madara had told Naruto to go home, telling him that they could meet tomorrow at the same spot to which Naruto quickly agreed before he bounced away. He cleaned his eyes so that no blood taints remained on his cheeks and eyes.

He then made his way to the KMPF headquarters as he could only remember where that building was but had forgotten how to get to the house, his home now, he quickly corrected himself. To his luck, Fugaku was still there so he impatiently waited for the clan head to call it a day and go home with him.

He waited for two hours, in which none of the other Uchiha bothered to talk to him, maybe because they didn't know what to make of him, when finally he caught sight of Fugaku and quickly went to him.

"Well, what a coincidence that we meet, now we can go home together!"

Fugaku obviously wasn't fooled, instead he looked at him pensively."I'd like for you to go inside so that we can…check something."

"Can't it wait until tomorrow. I'm tired as hell!" Madara groaned. He wasn't but after everything which had happened he didn't want to deal with that right now.

Well, it seemed that the boy had recovered from whatever it was the boy had been bothered by the last time they had met. Fugaku couldn't deny how his eyelids were about to drop so he agreed, albeit reluctantly and together they made their way back home.

When they arrived, it was already dark and as soon as they went inside, they were greeted by a woman with long, dark hair. She gave Fugaku a questioning look and he slightly inclined his head, confirming the unspoken question.

"Well, you must be Madara! I'm glad to have you as my son. Please be quiet, Itachi and Sasuke-kun are already sleeping, as they have to wake up early tomorrow."

Sasuke for the Academy and Itachi for yet another mission, despite him only recently returning from one. Mikoto was naturally worried about her eldest son but had to keep quiet, Itachi was, after all, the clan's heir and it was expected of him to work hard and long, as much as it pained her to admit that.

That boy, however, whose name strangely enough happened to be the same as their famous ancestor, Madara, was suspicious, to say the least. Although her husband had told her of his reasons (and she was glad that Fugaku finally saw reason and recognized that Itachi, as much of a genius as he was, couldn't take all of this pressure anymore) she thought it was reckless to have a foreigner with most likely dubious motives live in their house, alongside with _her sons_, especially little Sasuke, who had only recently started to train as a ninja.

Despite her protests, her husband wouldn't budge and knowing how stubborn he could be and that as the clan head he had the final say, she finally relented, albeit reluctantly.

But that didn't mean that Mikoto was happy about that. So behind her welcoming and warm façade, she warily scrutinized the boy before her, using her slightly rusty ninja skills to search for any hints of threat he might pose.

The boy must have noticed, as he fidgeted nervously, although he was trying to keep his expression blank. Her expression softened. He couldn't have been much older than Itachi.

"Would the two of you like to eat something?" she softly inquired.

Fugaku shook his head. "No. I shall go to my room now."

Which meant that he was too tired to eat anything and that he wanted to go to bed as soon as he could, Mikoto nodded understandingly. The only reason for this farce was that he didn't want to show any weaknesses before the boy.

She turned to Madara. "And what about you?"

The boy looked startled but he quickly recovered. "Hn. I don't feel like eating anything but thank you."

Once again Mikoto nodded, acting like the dutiful housewife she was supposed to be. "I have prepared your room, Madara-kun. There are no personal items of yours inside as you don't have any in your possession as far as I know, though I still tried to make it as comfortable as I could. Have a good night and please do not hesitate to ask if there is a problem."

"Thanks," Madara muttered, looking slightly embarrassed, his face flushed. A genuine smile tucked on her lips and she chuckled quietly, perhaps, she was just being paranoid, though she would still keep an eye open. What was the saying again? Better safe than sorry.

o~O~o

Madara stared blankly at the ceiling, lying in his bed. It was hard to believe that only a day and a half or so ago he had been having a staring competition with Hashirama. It felt like an eternity, as though it had been a part of another life. He sighed, unlike yesterday, sleep wouldn't come that easily to him.

So much was gone, so much had changed. For instance, he now seemed to have something similar to a caring mother. He seriously didn't know how he was supposed to act, his mother had passed away shortly after giving birth to Izuna (he had stopped blaming his little brother for his mother's death for a long time, it was hard not to if you had to take care of your infant brother and being cruel to said brother felt like kicking a puppy, then throwing it into a fire and eat the remains of it).

It had been a long time that someone had cared for him that way. Madara was sure that having to be cared for was a sign of weakness and he'd rather gouge out his eyeballs with a rusty kunai than admitting weakness because of a _woman_. But he certainly didn't want to harshly reject her for her efforts to make him feel at home, that was if he would ever be able to.

He sighed. Was that divine punishment for the crimes his adult form had done? If it was, the punishment was fairly effective. Very torturing and scarring to his mental psyche indeed.

Madara closed his eyes, he'd have to think positive…like his friend Hashirama would have been if put in his shoes. There was a slight pang of pain as he recalled that his friend was dead and had most likely only felt animosity towards him until his death.

No, think positive. He had a friend, Naruto, who sort of reminded him of Hashirama. The clan was still there, even if he knew none of its faces. He also sort of had a family, supposedly a grumpy father, two brothers and a…mother. Not too bad, even if they could never replace his true family.

Then there was the fact that he'd become extremely powerful, even if he had went insane later on. Not only did he seem to be famous, even after a century, which in the shinobi world to be still remembered meant that he must be some kind of legend, but he had also managed to control the Kyuubi!

Granted, the way he had put that ability to use was disgusting and horrible but if one looked at the ability only, well, it was sort of…awesome and cool, for lack of better word, to have the most powerful bijuu do his very bidding. At that time, he had simply been unable to appreciate this fact because of…well, obvious reasons.

And hey, if he could become as strong as his future self had managed to, without turning insane in the process, the future might not turn out too bad. And while he wasn't exactly religious, he might be able to see his clan and his friend in the afterlife again…

And with that in thought, Madara slowly drifted off into peaceful slumber.

* * *

**A/N:** Yes, even as a boy Madara was a little sexist, though that might change later. And did I say that this chapter would be lighthearted? Uh, sorry, I should really not make any promises about the future plot. And if you felt that Madara was channeling Sasuke at some parts, well, I thought it would fit Madara.

And because I know that some people really wanted it, I let Hashirama have a short appearance in this chapter, yes, it's rather short and it might take a time until he will find some clues and/or have a real appearance in the major plot, so please be patient because as of now he would simply not fit into the current plot.

No real action, I know, and I'm really sorry but it will soon come, hopefully, perhaps.

As always, if you could spare some time, please review, they motivate and help me a lot :)


	8. Nothing But Problems

**But I AM Madara! – Nothing But Problems**

**A/N:** This chapter is rather boring but it needs to be done to fill some plot holes (though I honestly doubt that there are none now) and I didn't want to have an overly long chapter so I split it up. Next chapter will be hopefully more interesting (and I will update it in the next few days most likely) though I would seriously recommend you to not skip this chapter, no matter the content, as otherwise you'd get highly confused later on.

And if some of you got confused as to why Madara didn't show up anymore in the past (during the Hashirama scene), despite what was explained earlier, well, there is a reason to it all, you just have to wait ^^ Hashirama will also have an appearance in the time in which Madara is now so don't worry, I just have to figure out the details.

Oh and of course thanks for your awesome reviews and the favorites and alerts! They always make my day :D (and xGuiltyXGigglesx03 for offering me your help, I may really need it in the future :) Glad to see that there are some people who like my version of child Madara, that was one of the things I've been worried about most, seeing as he is the main character of this story and thus I really wanted to keep him IC, which is somewhat difficult as the child version of his has only made an appearance in about 2 to 3 chapters.

* * *

The sun was shining through the window, its rays of light stirring Madara awake. Slowly, he rose, rubbing the tiredness out of his eyes and yawning loudly. He was in the bedroom Fugaku's wife had offered him (he still had no idea what her name was).

He could feel the bitter taste of disappointment on his tongue, no matter how real it all felt, he simply couldn't shake off the feeling that perhaps everything had been just a dream and he'd wake up right beside his little brother.

Sighing, he jumped out of the bed and made his way downstairs to the room where a tasty smell was coming from.

"Ah, good morning, Madara-kun! Have you slept well?" the woman greeted her warmly. She was forming rice into little balls and gestured to him to take a seat which he quickly did.

"Morning," he said, trying his best to hide his comfort. He still had not found a good solution to his little problem regarding the woman and the preservation of his dignity. "I slept quite well."

Nodding and smiling, she placed the rice balls which she had just made on a plate before him and poured milk into the cup which had been already standing on the table.

"I'm sorry for the rather simple meal, I was currently cooking a soup for a sick aunt of mine and have forgotten to make breakfast for you too. It was quite hectic this morning."

"How come?" Madara asked between munches and bites, only belatedly realizing that he might come off as rude.

"Well," she said, sitting down on the seat opposite him, across the table. "Itachi was sent to a mission and he had to wake up early today but I managed to make him something to eat before he went away. Fugaku told me that he wouldn't return until late evening so I made him breakfast and enough snacks to prevent him getting hungry during the day. Sasuke-kun overslept because he had been training until evening yesterday and I've forgotten to make him something because I was still busy cleaning up the mess I have made while I've cooked for Fugaku. So I had to make him something quick to eat which he could eat on his way to school." She let out a sigh.

"Then I remembered that I wanted to visit my aunt today and give her favorite soup. She swears that she doesn't need any medicine as long as she can eat her soup," she said, chuckling lightly. "This is also the reason why I've forgotten to make a breakfast for you. It was so busy today, it simply slipped my mind."

Madara waved his hand dismissively. "I really don't mind. So everyone, except us, is already gone?"

"Yes, this is correct," the woman nodded. "I am also supposed to relay a message from Fugaku, telling you to meet him in his office today, he didn't state any exact time so I think you are free to visit him whenever you see it fit as long as it is today, of course."

Madara rubbed his chin absently, having already finished the little meal. Hadn't Fugaku mentioned something like a check yesterday? "Did he say why I'm supposed to meet him?"

"He did say that this meeting would be the final proof to confirm the validity of your claims," she said, smiling faintly at the groan coming from Madara as he heard that.

Was that paranoid clan head still wary of him? Even after he had been practically adopted by him?

"Forgive my man for his actions but spies are common in great hidden ninja villages such as Konohagakure is and having one among our midst would be very fatal indeed." Especially if you took recent developments in the clan's future plans into account.

"So why does he bother to go through so much trouble and even adopt me? Not that I'm not grateful for it but it would make more sense to just eliminate me, seeing as I might be a possible threat, and not take any risks," Madara said, knowing that asking wouldn't worsen his situation as that must have certainly already crossed the clan head's mind. In the beginning Fugaku, along with the rest of the present clan, had seemed to be ready to do just that, assuming him to be some dangerous spy, when suddenly the man had done a complete 180 and had decided to adopt him.

Madara somehow doubted that he had done so out of the kindness of his heart. So naturally he suspected that Fugaku had some ulterior motive and now that he wasn't desperately trying to get to his family, seeing as they were dead, like he had been last time, he'd like to know the reason for this sudden change of heart. If he was going to be used, he'd like to know how. That left a bitter taste in his mouth, because in his clan the way he knew it, he had at least felt like an individual, a warrior with rights, and not like some sort of weapon, even if he was, like they had all been just tools for the landlords to solve petty quarrels among them.

"He would like to create a connection between this clan and yours," Mikoto answered, carefully choosing her words. It was only the half-truth, it was a nice side-effect but the main reason was to use the boy rather than Itachi as the connection between the village and the clan which would be later exploited for their coup.

Itachi was valuable, not only because she was her son but also because he was the clan's heir and one of the most talented shinobi the clan had ever produced, someone the clan couldn't afford to lose. If it weren't for those two facts and that she was also the clan leader's wife, she'd have long stopped the clan from placing all of these burdens on his young shoulders. As it was, however, there had been no other Uchiha fit for that role, the role of the Uchiha's spy, except of Itachi.

What the clan hadn't expected though was that Itachi might snap or worse betray them, however, his recent behavior was worrying. Yet they couldn't replace Itachi as no one was talented or trusted enough by the village to do so. So the clan had reluctantly took the risk as it still meant that they had a spy but had assigned Shisui, a close friend of Itachi and one of the most skilled and trusted Uchiha in the clan, despite his attitude, to keep an eye on him to absolutely make sure that there was nothing amiss with Itachi.

That had been the situation before an unknown factor had literally shown up out of thin air. The Uchiha boy, named Madara who claimed to be a member of another Uchiha clan which had split up and became their own clan and apparently was still working as mercenaries as her ancestors had used to. The official reason for them adopting Madara was to, after they had confirmed that he was no threat to the village, use the boy as some sort of link to the other clan which could later result in an alliance to the village, not the clan, as Fugaku had been careful to phrase it like that.

The Hokage had seemed to be somewhat doubtful at first, as Fugaku had told her when he had went home to eat lunch, but had quickly changed his mind when he saw what positive effect he seemed to have on Kushina's son. Well, the Hokage had always been a little soft, especially in regards to children, and even though he might suspect what the clan had in mind, although it wasn't very likely, he'd take the risk, even if he might sent some of the ANBU to keep an eye on him, claiming that the boy could still very well be a spy, no matter what sorts of tests they had done to prove that he was not.

The police's word was not trusted, after all, anymore, a fact which made most of the Uchiha furious, her included, even if it was on a smaller degree. Though the Hokage and the council would certainly phrase it differently, telling them that in the ninja world one could never be too sure, which was true but so obviously not their real reason.

The council might be of a different opinion but the Hokage had the final say and even they could probably see the benefit of having another powerful clan as their allies.

In the end it was a play with the fire and there were benefits and risks. Fugaku had, as he had told her, no intention of having an alliance with the other clan but only pretended to have as that was the most likely reason for his actions regarding the boy. He didn't want to have such a great unknown factor while they were planning the coup and also when they were executing it.

The Hokage and the elders might suspect the real reason too though it was very unlikely, no Uchiha would have told them and Itachi was being watched. They'd surely only see the benefit and try to have the other clan as their allies and would grudgingly accept the adoption into the potentially dangerous clan, seeing as the boy would most likely get along the best with fellow Uchiha, and would take the risk of him being influenced by the clan.

Outright denying the clan's wish to adopt him would be foolish and would arise more than just a few people's suspicion. The other clans may have already noticed the subtle change of treatment towards the clan but their suspicions would be confirmed and that of the Uchiha clan's too if they would deny them without a good reason which they obviously had not. After all, some appearances had to be kept.

With this in mind, it had been also fairly easy to convince the Hokage to let Madara become a citizen and thus allowing him to become a Leaf nin, because then the village would have the opportunity to influence him too but Fugaku was sure that he'd succeed first in doing so.

The boy was a free card which could be used efficiently on both sides, which was both good and bad for the clan. One risk was that he could remain loyal to the village and not the clan and the good part being that the Hokage would think so too and would trust him more than any other Uchiha, aside of Itachi, making him ideal for the role of the spy.

And with the hopefully good results of the check, meaning that the boy was indeed an Uchiha, serving no one in order to harm the village and clan, otherwise he'd be unfortunately executed and all of their plans regarding the boy and her hope as a mother would be shredded into pieces, the boy would quickly be able to assume that role, even if it might take some years longer, they had, after all, still time.

Of course, one might argue that basically keeping a member of the clan, whose clan you wanted to be allied with and whom you would use as the linking point, a prisoner and doing tests on him and adopt him into the clan and make him a ninja of the village, without even the slightest inclination on the boy's part wasn't exactly the best start to an alliance. But they had good reasons as the boy had suddenly appeared out of the blue and many facts had simply pointed to the fact that he might be a spy so the other clan would surely understand them doing that and them having to keep the boy in the village to prevent him relaying information to enemies. They'd surely be happy that they didn't just lock him in a cell, as they could have easily done but had instead went out of their way and even tried to include them into the village.

The highly diplomatic and soft-hearted Hokage had also agreed with that reasoning and had told Fugaku that he was therefore not allowed to use…radical means on the boy, such as torture, to get information out of the boy, unless it was indeed proven that he was a spy, because otherwise an alliance between the village and the clan would certainly be doomed to fail, as the boy's clan would certainly not take it kindly that one of their own had been harmed gravely. And it was very difficult to erase a victim's memory of torture and if it indeed succeeded there would be other marks on the mind which the clan would also notice, especially with their Sharingan of theirs, and would also question the reason of that which would lead to the same aforementioned result, in short no alliance and in the worst case scenario, if the boy was truly important, even to a war with the other clan, which would be, despite their most likely bigger numbers and strength, not in the village nor Uchiha clan's interest.

Fugaku had accepted that quite easily, as he did not wanted to antagonize the boy, seeing that he still needed him as a spy, which he could only be, if the clan gained the necessary trust to give him the task which they certainly wouldn't have if the boy hated their guts.

The Hokage could have, of course, demanded to also have the Konoha Interrogation and Torture Force have a look on the boy but why would he do so? Didn't he trust the Konoha Military Force? There had been things like that before, in which the Hokage and the council had took matters into their hands, even though it had been supposed to be the Uchiha's task but it had never been in such an obvious way and Mikoto was sure and so was her husband that the Hokage wouldn't start to do so now, not now when the clan seemed to have already realized what exactly was going on and doubting the KPMF's abilities in such a blatant way would have been the final straw. The old man would have to be content sending ANBU to keep an eye on the boy as that was the thing Fugaku could compromise on.

Though as the clan leader's wife she knew her fair share of politics (not even half of what she had thought right now her husband had said to her out loud, and it had been also in a much more discreet way, just in case of eavesdroppers, the rest she had guessed, as was to be expected of the clan head's wife) she detested them with all her mind. It was politics that destroyed her son's childhood and it was politics which made the boy before her nothing more than a means to achieve the goals of the two opposite sides. She was tired and wary of it all but she would remain loyal to their clan as she had been taught since her birth, the same way all her fellow clan members had been.

While Mikoto was musing about the unfortunate task the boy had been assigned to, without even his knowledge yet, said boy was currently facing his own issues, namely what his future plans were as only now did he remember that everyone or at least the clan was still under the impression that he was from another clan.

Obviously, telling them who he truly was would not go down well, either they would not believe him, hell, he had only done so because denying it was just downright stupid, what with all the proofs. Or worse, they would believe him and would accordingly treat him, for example execute him for his past crimes, namely letting a freaking demon wreak havoc in the village and attempting (and failing) to murder the past Hokage.

And even if that was not the case he doubted that he'd like whatever his clan or the village as a whole had in mind, once they found about his true identity. So revealing his true identity and anything involving it, like time travel, was out. He'd have to stick to his other Uchiha clan story.

Now, Madara had several problems.

The first one being that the village would like to have an alliance to a clan which simply did not exist, using him for that purpose.

The second one was closely linked to the first one. If he recalled right, he had requested to be allowed to visit his family and thus the 'other clan' for a last time before having to do whatever the hell they wanted him to do, although he had first suspected that they just wanted to make sure that he couldn't reveal some village secrets or something along these lines to enemies, as guards would be sent with him, no doubt watching him with a hawk's eye.

However, he couldn't visit a family who had died a long time ago and suddenly changing his mind out of the blue and saying that he didn't want to go visit his family anymore would be odd, considering how desperate he had been when he had done the request. And since they still trusted him as much as an Uchiha would trust a Senju in his times, they'd inquire for his reasons and then he'd be forced to lie and he was sure that he'd let something slip and then they would be absolutely sure about him keeping something secret and was thus a spy and then he'd be tortured for information and then executed, either for being a spy, if they hadn't managed to make him speak or kill him for being the first ninja to betray the Leaf, or do even worse things to him.

And then there was that meeting with Fugaku in which he'd have to undergo some sort of check to make absolutely sure that he was who he claimed he was which obviously was not the case. So even if his lie (which he hadn't known it was one, as at that time he had believed so too) wasn't found out, which it would be as soon as it was clear that his supposed family visit couldn't take place due to there being no family to visit, Madara would be still fucked if that check managed to get the truth out of him.

Great, no matter what happened, it would either end with him being locked in a cell, dead or even worse off. He was a genius, yes, but no miracle worker and even though he had basically nothing to lose, he would still prefer being alive, especially since he had finally found reasons to look forward to the future and the second chance he had been offered, since technically it was one because without the time travel he'd have ended up as a madman, apparently bent on destroying anything which he had once cherished, so he guessed there was something positive in regards to his displacement into the future.

Kami-sama, what the hell was he supposed to do?

Both of the Uchiha's dark musings were interrupted, when a knock on the door could be heard.

Mikoto quickly went to the door and opened it. A rather old man with slowly greying hair stood before her, holding a rather huge packet in his hands.

"Ah, Tadashi-san! Good morning! Are those the clothes?" she asked, eyeing the packet. "You really shouldn't have troubled yourself, I could have gone and fetch them myself!"

Tadashi let out a laugh. "I might not be the youngest, but I'm still young enough to spare the clan head's wife the trouble of having to do the collection." He then gave her the packet, while looking over her shoulder and caught sight of Madara. "I'm supposed the clothes are meant for _him_?"

Madara certainly didn't like the tone the man had used when talking about him. The woman seemed to notice, if the slight narrowing of her eyes was any indication but she kept any remark regarding this to herself and nodded. "Yes, thank you for making and delivering them to me."

"It's a pleasure to do so for the clan leader's wife," Tadashi said, bowing slightly. "I shall leave then, good bye."

"Good bye." As soon as he was starting to make his way to wherever he wanted to go, she closed the door again and with a beaming smile, which if he was honest to himself gave him a bad feeling, she went to Madara and handed him over the packet which he was eyeing warily.

"What's that?" he asked, not quite sure if he even wanted to know.

"Your clothes, of course," she said, still with that infuriating smile on her lips. "You can't just always wear the same things."

"How do even know if they fit?" Madara asked, opening the packet, after he had laid it down on the table, and took a piece of clothing out, which happened to be a navy blue, high-collared shirt, on the back the Uchiha fan was proudly put on display. And as far as he could see, there were not only those shirts but also dark trousers and in a separate box put in the big packet seemed to be a pair of blue sandals, the kinds which everyone in the village, at least the shinobi, seemed to wear.

"You're roughly about the same size as Itachi," she explained, observing how Madara took out more pieces of clothing and eyed them curiously. "You can go to your room and change your clothes now, if you want to, they are already washed."

"Yeah, I will do that," Madara said. The clothes he currently wore were after all not exactly fit for battle and didn't show to which clan he belonged to, obviously as in his time, one only wore his clan's crest in battle.

"Thanks," he quickly added.

To which she replied: "No problem." And then gave him one of those smiles, which could be roughly translated into 'you're a child and I'm happy to care for you'. Kami, he was really slowly starting to get uneasy.

Madara stashed the clothes back into the packet and was about to carry it to his room, when the woman called, "Oh and you should also go to the Academy."

Turning around and raising one of his eyebrows, he asked, "Why?"

"Fugaku has already enrolled you for the Academy Graduation exam next month so that you could become a Genin and thus a Leaf ninja. Seeing as you already seem to be one, it should be quite easy for you. However, I'm not quite sure, if your clan had taught you the same things we do to our children in the Academy and that might lead to problems regarding the written part of the exam. So you should go there and ask an instructor for scrolls and books which can prepare you for that part. I'm sure that that they will gladly help you and I would be also happy to assist you in studying the scrolls and books."

Madara opened his mouth to respond, only to close it again. Although he didn't mind becoming a Leaf nin, seeing as there was nothing else he could really do, he couldn't believe how they simply decided those sorts of things without even asking him for his permission or even talk about it with him at all.

She apparently seemed to have read his thoughts as she hastily explained, "You're still technically a spy and thus an unknown threat to the clan but you're still our son now, as we have adopted you, and thus it is fully within our rights to enroll you for the exam. And being a ninja would give you more rights and such and as I have said before it would be relatively easy for you, seeing as you're already a shinobi."

"It's not like I mind becoming passing that exam and becoming a Genin," Madara grumpily said, already starting to make his way to his room (he was a bit surprised that he was already starting to refer to it as his room but then again he never had a room on his own). "The problem is that I don't get to have any say in it whatsoever." And not waiting for a reply and only feeling slightly guilty at his rude behavior, he quickly headed to his room.

As soon as he was dressed in a navy blue, high-collared shirt and simple black trousers, reaching down to up to where the blue sandals, he now wore, were, he exited the house in the ninja way, meaning that he jumped though the window. He could feel the woman's gaze on his back but he refused to return it and feeling somewhat like a coward, he quickly walked down the path which led to the exit of the compound.

The first thing he wanted to do was to go to the spot where he had wanted to meet Naruto again and leave some sort of note behind, telling the blond that he might not come because he was pretty busy. However, it seemed that Naruto had already beat him to it. When he finally found the secluded spot where they had met, he was slowly getting better at orientating himself in the village, he saw some sloppy written words painted on the trunk of the tree where he had sat under yesterday. Scrutinizing them closely, Madara finally deciphered the meaning of the words which were something along the lines of 'Forgot that I've school. Iruka-sensei's gonna get angry if I skip again. Can't meet. Sorry.'

Well, it seemed that he could kill two birds with one stone as he would have to go to the Academy anyway to fetch those scrolls and books. He'd pay the blond a visit too and he'd lie if he said that he wasn't the least bit interested of the way the ninja educate their children, it had been, after all, one of the main aspects of Hashirama's dream. Though he did find it strange that he could do that Academy Graduation thingy, when he had never even attended the Academy before. Well, maybe he was just that awesome so that he simply didn't need to, seeing that he was already, as the woman had said before, a full-fledged ninja.

With this in mind, he ran as quickly as the wind to the Academy, pouring chakra to his feet to enhance his speed. The day would be very interesting indeed.

He had already forgotten about his appointment with Fugaku.

* * *

**A/N:** Boring, right? But it had to be done, sorry. I'm trying to make everything sound reasonable, though I'm already aware that it's not really the case but I just don't know what exactly I'm supposed to do about that so if there are things you noticed which I should really fix, please tell me (fixing those kinds of stuff can get pretty complicated, especially if it overlaps with other things which I would then have to fix too, so I mean really huge glaring holes in the story's logic which just give you that urge to facepalm, the other little ones I will somehow try to fix and/or incorporate later, though I don't mind if you tell me them now). Thanks in advance.

The one I've already noticed is that the Leaf nin(Uchiha clan but especially the Hokage) are far too nice and trusting for ninja in my story. I mean, even if what Madara had said was true about coming from another clan, it sounds really far-fetched and the possibility of him being just your common spy, but with the weirdest cover story, is so much more likely. An alliance is fine, great, if the clan even exists. But no matter how strong the clan seems to be, it's not worth the trouble of having a possible spy and thus a great threat in the village, at least willingly.

They'd interrogate him, roughly most likely, if he does not cooperate, though torture they would probably use only if the other means prove to be futile, then it would be clear that Madara's not from another clan and that he is in fact THE Madara, which would immediately alert the council and the Hokage and order him to be executed, he's a child, yes, but he's a powerful one and if he grows older, what's to say that he wouldn't do the exact same things and having another strong Uchiha, one who has already betrayed the village once, in their ranks, when the clan itself is acting more than just strange, isn't exactly the best for village's safety. And yes, they could try to model him into a loyal Leaf nin and thus strengthen their ranks with an asset like Madara but Madara has already found out about what has happened in the past (and even before he had, he would still eventually found out as it's impossible to keep his betrayal hidden forever, especially when Madara gets suspicious that they're keeping something secret from him). And he'd notice the village's true intention, which would make the village in return doubt Madara's loyalty to them.

They could also theoretically erase his memories, only leaving him with his skills and abilities, but that could backfire too (if memory erasing does even work in the Narutoverse or a t least in Konoha) and if Madara finds out he'd be pissed and thus again a danger to the village, most likely more than before.

So seeing that Konoha isn't that desperate to get more talented shinobi right now, they'd kill him and be done with him, easy, no risk taken, fairly simple, nearly everyone would be happy with that (aside Madara, of course, who wouldn't know what hit him until it's too late because I doubt that at his age he's capable enough to fend off a group of ANBU dispatched to assassinate him and no one would tell him of his execution, of course).

And in the off chance that they wouldn't find out Madara's identity, he still isn't worth the trouble to agonize the Uchiha clan even more, meaning that they'd never allow the clan to adopt the boy and have only them have a check on the boy's origin, this would lead to conflict so it would be better to just kill Madara under the pretense of him being too much an unknown risk, 'cause they obviously wouldn't say 'We don't trust you Uchiha and thus can't allow you to adopt the boy and that only you're allowed to check his memory so that you can do that shadowy stuff of yours without us ever knowing what exactly is going on in your minds.' So it would still amount to the same thing, namely the execution of Madara.

And even if Madara is a child and the Sandaime is known for his kindness, the village has always top priority, as could be seen with the Massacre of the Uchiha clan, and one can't just lead a freakin' ninja village for decades with just being nice.

The clan would not be pleased with the execution (I doubt that they would mind having the real Madara in their clan) but everyone can see that it's a possibly huge risk not to do so and as the clan doesn't want to draw too much attention to themselves they would go along with them grudgingly or would start the coup earlier and in the process also try to save Madara so that he can fight for their clan.

If the clan thinks they have no chance right now (but I doubt they would ever have a real chance against the whole village, not to mention against the other villages, once they hear of the huge instability in Konoha), they would do nothing, because despite him being a great ancestor of theirs, they couldn't afford to oppose the village now and Madara would be executed and off in the afterlife reuniting with his brother and then later after the Massacre, everyone would celebrate and they'd throw one hell of an Uchiha party, cursing the Senju and Konoha and all that good stuff.

Yeah, pretty crappy plot and end (though it would be somewhat funny, the end at least).

So because I'm not creative enough to come up with something more plausible, let's just pretend for plot convenience that the ninja in my story are a mix of canon (because in the manga/anime they aren't really acting like shinobi are supposed to be most of the time, not that I mind that, 'cause then things would be much darker and I hate really dark, tragic and sad stuff) and wishful thinking.

Hope that you're not very bothered by that, if you are, tell me and I will try my best to fix it ^^ though I don't know if I can, aside from rewriting the whole story…

But I think the main point of fiction is to enjoy them, even if the logic isn't exactly flawless (like Naruto but it's still my favorite manga) so I suppose as long as you like it and don't feel to annoyed at the not plausible stuff that would be great as well ^^

Just wanted to put all of this stuff in the A/N because otherwise it would forever bug me.

Good grief my A/N' nearly as long as a chapter, everyone who read that is unbelievably awesome (more awesome than you already are by reading this craptastic story up to this chapter XD")

In the next chapter there will be another meeting with Naruto and surprise, surprise Sasuke! Because seriously at the beginning it was really supposed to be a story focused on friendship and family and stuff, until village and clan politics came and sort of ruined it.


	9. Brother, You're Alive Or Not

**But I AM Madara! – Brother, You're Alive!...Or Not**

**A/N:** Thanks for the helpful reviews and favorites and alerts, they make me really happy. Like I've expected the last chapter got mixed feelings, yeah, it's also one of my least favorite chapters of this story, along with the second one, but it needed to be explained at one point, right?

I've also gone and changed some things in the last chapter, Mikoto now refers to Naruto as Kushina's son and not as the Demon who is to be blamed with everything. I've forgotten that she was Kushina's friend and knew of her pregnancy thus making her one of the few who know of Naruto's true heritage. Thanks to semexx for pointing that out!

I guess me not remembering that fact is because I've read the older chapters years ago, and I've lost my interest in Naruto and only recently regained it. Then there's the fact that I've written this story in the early morning, around 4 am. Funny fact, I'm usually writing the chapters of this story in the middle of the night, I don't know why (other than the reason that usually I can't or am too busy). Maybe it's because I'm so tired, I'm half-dreaming and can come up with all of that stuff? So if I've seemed to have forgotten some important canon stuff, please tell me, I do use the Narutopedia often but it's still very likely that I miss some things.

And I know that my story can get confusing at some points so please don't hesitate to send me a PM and asking me, I'd be glad to help out!^^

And to make up for the shitty chapter, there won't be any stupid schemes in this chapter, just plain ol' friendship, the light-heartedness the story had in earlier chapters, which it sort of lost along the way, and the Uchiha family issues we all know and love/hate, because with the Uchiha it's always a love-hate relationship.

And last but not least thanks to the reviewers who gave me that inspiration, you will probably know what I mean later on. And Hektols for the other with Naruto and the Uzumaki symbol.

Well, and also the last chapter… OMG I don't know how you were feeling about it but I was like laughing through the entire chapter (and Madara getting rejected by Hashirama… I don't even know where to begin, boy, I was laughing so hard). That's one of the things I like about Naruto, the lovely amount of WTF scenes it has, like Sasuke's introduction by stealing Naruto's dream. Can't wait for the next chapter and I'm hoping for some serious ass-kicking, courtesy of Sakura, because damn it's about time the female main character gets to shine.

Alright, rambling's done. I hope you will enjoy this chapter (although for some reason it didn't turn out the way I had in mind).

* * *

"So you're the newest addition to the clan, is that correct?" the instructor asked. The word 'bastard' was left unsaid.

Madara narrowed his eyes but then nodded curtly. He had entered the Academy with the intention of visiting Naruto first, when an instructor had stopped and asked him, what he was doing, wandering around, when he was supposed to be in the classroom. This had led to the current situation.

"Well, you must be quite impressive to make Fugaku, out of all people, chose to adopt you," the instructor went on, leading the way to wherever the needed scrolls and books were.

"Well, I AM impressive," Madara said, with no small amount of confidence. If people thought he was a bastard (something which still annoyed him to no end), at least he could let them think that he was a skilled and talented one.

The instructor shot him an annoyed look. The boy might not be a real Uchiha but he had the necessary arrogance to pass off as one. "I see," he slowly said, knowing that being rude wasn't a wise decision.

An uncomfortable silence settled upon them as they neared a room at the end of a corridor. The instructor opened the door and beckoned Madara to wait outside which made him wonder if there was something secret in there which he wasn't allowed to see.

The man swiftly returned with a scroll in his hands. Madara raised one of his eyebrows. Really, there was so little which needed to be learned? That test would be far too easy.

However, the instructor seemed to have noticed the smug look on Madara's face and was more than happy to correct that. "Oh, it's a seal scroll. You do know how they work?"

"Yeah, I do," Madara said grumpily, smirk wiped off his face. Unenthusiastically, he took the scroll the instructor handed him and eyed it warily. "How much?"

"Enough subject material to keep normal students busy for 5, 6 years," the instructor kindly informed him.

Madara felt the return of yet another great headache. "Kami, and how the hell am I supposed to learn that all in_ one_ month?!" he groaned, fighting against the urge to bury his face in his hands.

"I'm sure your new family will be more than happy to help you out and many things you should already know as it's basic shinobi knowledge, " the instructor comforted him, having finally taken pity on the poor sod who had to do such a mind-crushing task.

"Yeah, whatever," Madara mumbled darkly, putting the scroll in one of the pockets. "Anyway, thanks for the help. Do you happen to know where Naruto Uzumaki is currently attending lessons?"

Not so surprisingly, the instructor scowled and gave him a suspicious look. "Why would you want to know that?" he demanded to know, his eyes narrowed into tiny slits.

"Because he's my friend and because I'm curious about the teaching," Madara answered truthfully, shrugging carelessly.

That definitely wasn't the answer the instructor had expected. "You're the friend of that…_that child_?" he struggled for words which could successfully convey his confusion and shock.

This made Madara in turn narrow his eyes. "What's the big deal? And what's your problem with Naruto anyway? I mean, aren't you all family?" he asked innocently, unaware of the implications he had just made.

If the instructor had any liquid in his mouth, he'd have spit out all of it at hearing the recently adopted Uchiha boy's question. As it was, he simply choked on air. "W-what?" he spluttered indignantly, barely able to believe what his ears had just heard, maybe it was just him growing old.

"Well," Madara decided to elaborate, something which he had to do quite a lot lately, "all of you seem to wear the Uzumaki crest, you know that red spiral and as far as I know Naruto is an Uzumaki too so wouldn't that make you all members of the same clan and thus family?"

The instructor didn't know whether to laugh or to be absolutely horrified that someone would think that the whole village or at least all of the Leaf nins were related to that…fox brat. He decided to choose the former.

When Madara saw how his explanation made the instructor go all mad and cackling, he couldn't help but wonder if he had just said something very stupid, stupid as in Hashirama-stupid, which already defied any laws of logic and common sense.

"Um, " Madara began, unsure on how to proceed.

Finally, the instructor seemed to have gotten a grasp on him again. Still chuckling and wiping the tears off his eyes, he explained, amused, "Oh, you've got it all wrong. The ninja of Konoha wear the crest of Uzushiogakure, which also happens to be the symbol of the Uzumaki clan, and it's a symbol of the strong friendship between the two villages. Now it's more to honor them as the village was destroyed in war."

"Oh," Madara said, not knowing what else to add. However, he took notice that apparently there had been or rather there still were more villages like Konoha, apparently other clans had copied them and also made their own village. With the information he would learn in the following month, he'd finally have all or at least many of his questions answered. Madara actually looked forward to studying for the exam.

"But, seeing as Naruto is an Uzumaki, wouldn't that be sort of spitting on the loss of that village?" he asked carefully.

This made the instructor scoff. "Oh, if only you knew…" he trailed off, realizing that he had entered dangerous territory. "Anyway, I doubt that he's a real Uzumaki."

"So he's just called one because of a whim?" Madara asked dryly.

"Well, I sincerely doubt that he's one, otherwise he couldn't possibly…never mind."

A vein popped on Madara's forehead. Were they doing it on purpose? Alright, he'd find out about the truth of Naruto or he'd die trying, he vowed to himself silently. And let it be known that once Madara had set something on his mind, he'd do it to the bitter end, his stubbornne- his pride simply wouldn't allow otherwise.

"Anyway, coming back to my question. Where's he?"

The instructor eyed him for a moment before he shrugged, deciding that it wouldn't hurt if the boy knew. "Room 12."

"Thanks," Madara said and swiftly made his way to said room.

o~O~o

His hand hovered uncertainly over the door handle. Damn, he wasn't usually that hesitant. But should he really just barge into the room? It wasn't exactly polite to interrupt a lesson that abruptly and despite what was commonly thought, Madara was trying to be polite most of the time if he could help it, unless some idiotic Senju came and ruined his efforts, of course.

Screw it, he was an Uchiha and new to the village anyway, no one could blame him for not knowing and waiting was never something he had enjoyed so he just pushed the handle down, opened the door and entered the classroom.

Immediately, all eyes were set on him, which didn't make Madara uncomfortable _at all_ because he used to be the clan head's father and thus was _naturally used_ to having all attention directed to him.

"Madara!" an obnoxiously loud voice pierced through the awkward silence and never before had Madara felt that grateful for the loudmouthed blond.

The blond, who before had been in some sort of daze, induced by the long lecture, courtesy of one Iruka-sensei, quickly jumped up from his seat and in the blink of an eye in which you could only see a flash of yellow, he was suddenly before Madara, already bombarding him with questions.

"Why are you here? Do you wanted to visit me? Are you now a student too? Are you MY classmate? Do y-"

"Naruto, calm down," Iruka said. Directing his attention to the Uchiha boy before him, he asked, "You're Madara, right?" News had travelled fast and he had been one of the ninja who had helplessly watched (surprisingly enough, Naruto hadn't seemed to be affected that it was him who had shouted to stop which was most likely to be blamed on the presence of his partner-in-crime)how the two boys had gone and made a mess out of the Hokage mountain (though a part of him, the part which had never ceased to be an immature prankster, couldn't help but feel inwardly impressed by that feat). He wasn't too sure what to think of the boy.

If rumors were to be believed, he was an illegitimate child of an Uchiha and normally, would be handled accordingly to that fact by the Uchiha clan. However, it was claimed that in fact the clan head himself, Fugaku-san, had decided to adopt him. The reasons behind this varied, some claimed that the boy was one hell of a shinobi and thus it would be a waste of talent to not adopt and accept him as an Uchiha, others just assumed that the clan head had finally lost it, after all, Uchiha were more prone to bouts of insanity than the common shinobi.

However, that wasn't the reason he was worried about the boy, no, it was the fact that the boy was supposedly Naruto's friend. It was more than strange that out of all people, it was the kyuubi's container he'd choose to befriend, especially considering how much the blond craved for attention. He had brought his worries up to the Hokage, who had quickly reassured him that the ANBU who had been on Naruto watch duty had reported to him that their encounter and everything which had followed later had been an accident and didn't seem to be planned and that he had told the ANBU to observe any future interaction between the two boys closely.

However, this did little to nothing to ease his worries. There was still that possibility that the boy was a spy, intended on getting information about the village's resident jinchuuriki and he could only imagine the amount of grief Naruto would feel, if he found out that he had been only used and as his…teacher he didn't want him to go through this, parents-murdering fox or not.

Madara did not miss the scrutinizing gaze of the teacher and he also noticed that it was tingled with worry, worry for someone else.

Deciding to ignore it for now, he quickly answered, "Yeah, that's right, I'm him…I mean, Madara," he corrected himself, inwardly cursing himself for the short lapse of intelligence.

This managed to bring a smile to Iruka's lips and he said, "I see. Congratulations on your adoption into the Uchiha clan by Fugaku-san and welcome to the village. I hope you will manage to settle in well."

Huh, the instructor seemed to be the first shinobi he had encountered in this village who actually seemed to be decent and normal. He made a mental note to remember that man.

"Thanks, I-" Unsurprisingly, he was interrupted. Surprisingly enough, it wasn't Naruto.

"What, father adopted_ him_?" a high-pitched voice shrieked indignantly which made Madara turn to the owner of said voice. What he saw made him nearly choke on air.

No, it couldn't be…

"IZUNA!" he cried, barely managing to hold in manly tears of joy as he dashed to his brother, who at this point looked pretty freaked out and was wondering what the hell was going as he got his ribs nearly crushed by the hug that that strange wanna-be Uchiha gave him.

"I thought you died, I thought you fucking died! How," Madara rambled on, his common sense long being overtaken by the emotions of seeing his little brother alive.

Sasuke, as that was the real name of the boy, looked helplessly around, only to be met by the sight of fawning fangirls who were overjoyed by the cuteness of the scene and the more common reaction of the rest of the class which could easily be summed up in three words, namely 'what the fuck'.

Unexpectedly, the annoying dobe came to the rescue. "Do you go around and hug every boy you meet?" he shouted angrily, pointing his finger accusingly at Madara. And well, if that didn't leave enough room for misunderstandings…

The accusation made Madara snap out of the haze of joy and relief and promptly brought him back down to earth. "The hell, Naruto?! He's my brother!"

"You're not my brother, Itachi is!" Sasuke shouted, after he had escaped from the bone-breaking hug of Madara, when his attention had been momentarily directed to Naruto, and had made sure that there was now a safe distance between them.

"What the hell are you trying to say? Have you lost your mind? I'm your bro-" he stopped as he looked at his brother's face, really looked. The lips, the shape of his hair… he looked deceivingly similar to Izuna but…

"You're not my brother," he said quietly, excitement and happiness quickly giving way to disappointment, sadness and pain. Damn, seemed like he had been still hoping for the impossible.

"No way," Naruto said, his face contorted into a big scowl. "You're the brother of the teme?! I thought you're new in the village!"

"I am," Madara replied tiredly, rubbing his temples. "And technically I am his brother as I've been adopted by his father, Fugaku-san."

"Why would my father do something like that? You're just an outsider!" his not-brother said and whatever fondness he had held for the boy, simply because of the similarity of his brother's appearance, swiftly went out of the window.

"Obviously, I'm not anymore. Better get used to that fact soon,…_brother_." Somehow the word felt wrong on his tongue but he ignored it in favor of looking at the instructor and the rest of the class who still appeared to be slightly baffled at the scene which had just happened before their very eyes.

Madara barely resisted the urge to bang his head repeatedly against the wall. There went his dignity… At least with the bush incident, there had been no witnesses, which was unfortunately not the case now. Great, he would be the laughing stock of the entire village at the end of the day and probably make Fugaku seriously reconsider the adoption. Wait, hadn't there been something along the lines of a meeting?

Iruka coughed, apparently having recovered from his shock and deciding that whatever had just happened right now he really didn't want to know what exactly it had been. "Alright, what was your reason for coming into the classroom in the first place, Madara?" he inquired.

Right now, the instructor of Naruto's class was slowly earning more and more plus points in Madara's eyes. Gratefully, he took the opportunity for a change of topic. "I was curious about the teaching in the Academy and I also thought it was a good idea to go visit Naruto," he said softly, smiling at the sight of a beaming Naruto.

Iruka nodded, for now he'd trust the boy as Naruto's first real friend. "Well, then you are welcome to stay and watch. Take a free seat."

It just so happened that the spot next to Naruto was free so the two of them went to their respective seats next to each other. As soon as they were properly seated, Iruka continued his lesson as though nothing had happened at all. And soon enough the class sunk back to its usual torpor.

As time passed, Madara finally understood how Naruto always seemed to doze off in the middle of the lesson, it wasn't exactly interesting, especially if you only understood half of what the teacher was saying. It was frustrating to say the least that he was unable to understand as he was unused to that feeling and it only made things worse that apparently most of the class understood just fine what he was trying to say and they were like five years younger than him, dammit.

Absently, he nudged Naruto with his elbow. "Stay awake," he whispered.

The blond sighed. "But it's so boring!"

"Nevertheless, if you want to become Hokage, you have to suffer through it. The road to becoming a leader is a hard one," Madara recited what his father had once said.

Naruto furrowed his eyebrows, contemplating what had just been said and sat up straight, opposed to his former posture which was him placing his head on the table and trying his best to not get caught dozing off in the class.

Madara smirked approvingly. "That's better," he whispered which made Naruto grin widely.

One minute later, a vein popped on Madara's forehead as Naruto's eyelids were again dangerously close to drooping. The fact that smacking Naruto would probably be frowned upon and the memory that last time that hadn't gone too well prevented him from doing exactly that. The boy had a far too short attention span!

Well, at least he had tried and it wasn't as though there were many things he could try to keep Naruto awake as the blond would quickly fall asleep once again. So instead of continuing his futile task, Madara tried his utter best at following the teacher's lecture.

Many of the things sounded familiar to him, chakra and all that stuff, however, the way the instructor described them left him absolutely clueless. It was clear that without any foreknowledge he'd be lost, like Naruto was. The blond had probably not bothered at all to keep attention in the lesson since the very beginning and later on simply couldn't catch on, even if he tried and from the looks of it no one could or wanted to really help him with that problem.

Madara considered helping Naruto out because he had sort of done the same, just in another way and he was always one to repay his debts. But then he remembered that he wouldn't be of any help at all and that for the next month, he'd have to concentrate on the exam and on the studying he had to do for that if he didn't want to fail so helping Naruto would unfortunately be not a possibility for the at least next month.

Back to his own problem with the content of the lesson. He knew of, for example, chakra, after all he was a shinobi, he knew how to use it, how to make the amount of it grow bigger and how to use it against enemies, but what he did not know were the details about it, the details the instructor was currently revising (because otherwise he might have understood) to his students.

Life as he had experienced it back in the past with his clan was but a fleeting memory, one moment you were alive, the next you were dead. There was no time to go over the details of this and that. Children were taught the essential things to survive in war and this was the only purpose of the so-called education they received. Even Madara, son of the Uchiha clan head, didn't get a proper education as this was reserved to the nobles and not the shinobi, no matter even if said shinobi were from powerful clans, as they had the luxury of time.

His father had dedicated that little free time they had to teaching him the most important things one had to know about leading a clan for the future, again details were left out but in that case they hadn't been that necessary as Madara had learned most of the things by simply observing what his father did in this or that situation.

Now that he thought of it most of the things he had learned through observing, he didn't know how other kids from other clans or families had done that but for him and nearly everyone in his clan that way had nearly always worked. So perhaps it was for that reason that he was unable to understand or learn as he needed to see what the teacher was trying to learn.

Speaking of the Uchiha way of learning… he stole a glance to his brother's look-alike who was sitting two rows before him at the very left of the room and who apparently by the look of his face understood the explanation perfectly. He was probably just trying to hide his confusion…

But the sheer similarity was eerie, how was it possible that- Wait a second. It had been already a century and the other Madara (as he had chosen to call his other part which had remained) had grown and become an adult so it wasn't that big of a stretch that his brother Izuna had done so too (even if he had gone insane, he couldn't believe that he, no matter in what form, wouldn't try his utter best at protecting Izuna and would allow him to die before he died himself). So if Izuna had been an adult, he had most likely done adult stuff and… yeah, better not try to think too much about what his little, basically baby brother might have done as an adult. Nevertheless, the possible result of those…activities was probably sitting only two rows before him.

He wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to do now, upon coming to that realization. Should he try to make up the things which had obviously gone wrong with his brother through trying to help his ancestor?

Madara shook his head, trying to clear his mind. Well, as of now he'd be his brother so there was plenty of time and opportunities to help him out.

o~O~o

He had to refrain himself from joining the others students who all but fled the classroom as soon as the bell signaled the end of the period. At a more dignified pace he followed Naruto outside where the rest of the class had break, eating lunch and talking and playing with other class mates.

Naruto grabbed his hand and pulled him alongside, apparently heading to a small group of students who were standing right before the swing. The questioning look he shot the boy was completely ignored.

When they were right before the group who at this point had turned around to look curiously at the approaching duo, Naruto halted and immediately began to boast, "Hey, look! That's my friend, Madara! He helped me paint the Hokage mountain. Oh and he's also the brother of Sasuke," he scowled at the last phrase, glaring at said boy who was also drawing closer, no doubt wanting to know more about his so-called new brother.

"Oh, so what the instructor told us was true! You really did it!" a brown-haired boy with red fang-like tattoos on his cheeks said loudly. The dog beside him barked seemingly in agreement. The sight made something stir in Madara's memory and his eyes widened slightly as he remembered what exactly seemed so familiar.

The Inuzuka clan! How the hell had they managed to persuade that clan to go become a part of the village? And looking more closely now he could spot several of Naruto's classmates having physical traits typical for several powerful clans the Uchiha and the Senju had fought against in the past. Apparently, Hashirama and him had turned into miracle workers once they had become powerful adults.

Naruto let out a hearty laugh in response, a grin splitting his face nearly in half. "Yeah, awesome, right?"

As other children asked the blond questions, Madara slowly started to tune out their chattering, becoming bored of it, especially since no one bothered to talk to him, most likely because of the age difference and the resulting shyness at approaching him, a foreigner. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sasuke glaring intensely not at Naruto but him.

A smirk slowly made its way to his lips. That might get interesting. Making sure that no one really paid attention to him, including Naruto, he slipped off and slowly made his way to his fellow clan kin who was watching his approach warily, his dark eyes narrowed.

"I get the distinct feeling that you've wanted to talk with me," Madara said purposefully airily.

Sasuke only scowled in response but the supposed scowl turned out to look more like a pout which gave Madara the hysterical urge to laugh. It remained him far too much of his brother. Apparently, the little Uchiha had also noticed that his so-called scowl didn't have the intended effect and so to cover up that awkward moment, he said in the most commandingly tone he could muster, the one he had picked up from his father, "Explain."

The elder Uchiha raised an eyebrow at the tone as it was usually him using that particular one but didn't give any other outward reaction, even if he didn't like it, the boy was currently higher in the hierarchy, no matter, if he was the older one or also the son of the clan head now. The fact remained that he was but a foreigner still and only adopted, while the boy, though young, was a fully accepted part of the clan and one of the real sons of Fugaku. It wouldn't do to do anything to alienate the boy, especially if they were supposed to live under the same roof for an unknown amount of time. As long as it didn't hurt his dignity too much but he supposed that giving in to the boy's…order wouldn't do too much harm, at least this was what he told the part of him who wanted to scold the younger Uchiha for daring to order him around.

"I went to the village, after my mother died who told me shortly before she passed away that my dead father had been an Uchiha and that his clan might be willing to take me in," Madara invented on the spot, deciding to grudgingly stick to the 'bastard' story, because that was what everyone, who were not involved into this business, were apparently thinking and he suspected that there must be a reason behind it. The so-called existence of another Uchiha clan was probably something which should not be blared out to the whole, wide world.

"So the clan just did?" Sasuke asked disbelieving, already losing count of the many times his father had lectured him and Itachi about the importance of keeping the Sharingan in their clan, meaning no affairs. Only thinking of it made Sasuke's face nearly turn as red as his favorite vegetable, apparently, his father had seen no reason to make that clear as soon as possible, disregarding the fact that none of his boys had entered their teens yet at that time.

"Well, they did, after I've shown them my skills which I was taught by my mother and I must have impressed them pretty much, seeing as I'm now your aniki," Madara ended his tale with a little satisfied smirk, the insides of him having finally ceased to twist at only the thought of Izuna.

Once again, Sasuke pouted-scowled. "Itachi is my aniki, you're a…a-" his upbringing stopping him from insulting the other boy so bluntly. "Whatever!" he angrily whirled around, showing Madara his back. "I don't care how awesome and super strong you are! You can never replace Itachi or…or _me_!"

And then he dramatically stormed away, leaving a totally bewildered Madara behind. Where the hell had that come from?!

* * *

**A/N**: Ugh, really the chapter sounded so much better in my head and I sort of wanted to put more into this one, like the talk with Fugaku and the first real appearance of Itachi, but the chapter has already over 5k words and I didn't want it to get too long. And ugh, the writing style in this chapter is even worse than usual and the plot doesn't seem to get on at all. Yeah, as you can see I'm pretty frustrated with this chapter and I can only hope that I'll manage to get the story back on track soon. I hope it wasn't too big a disappointment, considering that the last one wasn't that great either.

If some of you are peeved because Madara was seemingly unable to get the stuff Iruka was teaching them, despite most of the much younger students being able to understand quite well, well, I hope that I was somehow able to explain it in the chapter, though it won't be as extreme as in Naruto's case, far from it, after all, Madara is supposed to be a prodigy, he will pick most of the things up through experiencing and observing it.

Even if it's not exactly the best, perhaps review?


	10. Something Fluffy

**But I AM Madara! – Something Fluffy**

**A/N:** God, I can't believe the positive feedback for the previous chapter, seeing as I really think that it was fairly mediocre, you guys are awesome!

There's not much to say, except that the beginning seems to be a bit of rambling, I apologize for that, as for whatever reason I really wanted to include it.

I hope you enjoy it. And if there are some embarrassing and obvious mistakes, please point them out, as I haven't looked over it yet, which I wanted to do tomorrow when I have more time.

This chapter isn't very exciting either but I do like the ending of it but just see for yourselves.

* * *

Dog crouched on the roof of a building near the Academy, his presence concealed. Under his dog mask, a frown was slowly forming on his face. Madara, now Uchiha Madara. Frankly, he didn't know what to think of the boy.

He had been angry and shocked at first when the boy had…peed on Naruto! Yondaime's son! He had thought of it as some kind of cruel treatment, thinking that the dark-haired boy had meant for it to be a message, telling the blond that he was as low as trash and deserved to get pissed at. It was only through years of experience and training to the point that he had been appointed to the ANBU as one of its youngest member ever and the order that he was only allowed to intercept if Naruto faced bodily threat that had allowed him to repress his killing intention from leaking out or better yet, hit the boy with a well-deserved chidori.

As it had turned out, however, it had been just one big misunderstanding and before Dog could wholly register what had happened, the two boys had been suddenly at the Hokage mountain, blemishing the faces of the mighty leaders of Konoha, high-fiving each other and apparently acting as though they had been best friends for a long time.

Something inside his heart had ached when he had seen Naruto laugh, so many meters above the ground, only held by some measly ropes. A genuine laugh, his face so bright and radiating so much warmth and happiness, it had felt like looking into a miniature sun.

And for once he hoped, truly hoped that that boy, whoever he was, could be a true friend for Naruto, giving him happiness, the sort of happiness which he himself was unable to grant the boy. Although a part of him, the part, which had allowed him to survive during the war and during all the highly dangerous missions as an ANBU captain, knew that that boy was suspicious, very suspicious and that he should intervene but found himself unable to destroy that precious moment in Naruto's life. Because mental wellbeing was just as, no, much more important than physical wellbeing (and wasn't it hypocritical to use that for his reasoning when he had done nothing to protect the former but only the latter?). He was trash and everyone who he had ever truly cared for was dead.

Mother. Dead. (It was his fault that she had died, she had given her life so that he could be born and it only made it worse that his father had never blamed him for that.)

Father. Dead. (He hadn't supported his father in his darkest moment and he had been such a horrible son that his father hadn't even seen reason to stay alive for his son's sake and that told a lot, because his father was a good and honorable man, had been.)

Obito. Dead. (If only he had followed _him_ immediately, if only he had been faster and stronger, if only he had bothered to care about his teammates' wellbeing, if only he had been as foolishly brave as Obito, if only… _He_ was supposed to be the hero, the one who should have been remembered as a legend, not as one of the many nameless casualties of the war. It was _his _eye which had done all of those achievements. No matter what he tried, he could never hope to even reach what _he_ had done. Slacking off and making excuses for being late did not form the man, boy really, _he_ had been and he'd do anything to talk to his teammate in flesh and not to that memorial stone, which was but a hollow and cold remainder of his failure.)

Rin. Dead. (Killed, a chidori through her chest she had fallen like any other enemy he had faced in the past, even though she had been so much more than that, _he_ had tried everything to protect her and had died for it. She had died, he had killed her. A promise. A broken promise. Engraved into his memory forever through the red veil of his Sharingan, _his_ Sharingan, looking accusingly at him, whenever his left red eye happened to be uncovered and he looked at a reflective surface. Though even without the Sharingan he could have never forgotten the horrible, horrible expression she had worn when he had done it. Prepared to die, she had been, to save her village, their village. And he wondered when his teammates had grown so strong, only to notice that they had always been and he was just too weak. )

Sensei. Dead. (A hero, a selfless one as they had been all, sacrificing himself for the ones he hold dear, for the village. Sacrifice. A word he loathed, it just reminded him of the things he didn't want to think of, lest he might crack. Not that he hadn't already. The vile demon was sealed in his sensei's own son. He hated it how his sensei's last wish wasn't granted, how the very villagers he had died for were spitting on their hero's sacrifice, his legend. But that was nothing compared to what he felt anout the fact that he didn't do anything either. Only keeping the boy out of harm's reach and that was nothing compared to what he could have done, what _they_ had done or rather what they would do, if they were alive which they weren't, only he was, the weakest, and he hated it.)

Trash, even lower than that. He couldn't protect and make his sensei's son happy, he knew that if he did, the boy would undoubtedly die one day, his bright blue eyes blank, the blond hair tainted with his own blood, his expression hollow and dead, like they had been all in the end because even noble sacrifices didn't make the death less painful, less cold and cruel. And he would never forget himself for that if he allowed that to happen and he knew that it would break him, if it were indeed to occur, and he wasn't even that close to the boy as he barely spoke with him, but if he did, it would only hurt more, seeing Obito's grin on sensei's face. So he remained in the shadows, protecting and watching the boy from afar and hating every single second of it.

So seeing Naruto laugh as though he had no worries in this harsh, harsh world had made a smile tuck on his lips, a genuine one and a laugh had threatened to escape his throat but he had managed to refrain himself, as no one was supposed to know he was there.

Amused, he had watched how the two of them went on making a terrible mess out of the mountain and how in the end they had been scolded and punished for their prank and he had watched how later on Naruto had met the boy again and how said boy had hurt Naruto, not physically or else the boy would have lost a limb before he could so much as give out a squeak but mentally and that was the thing which he had dreaded the most would happen and he cursed himself for not having done what was necessary. It wasn't the first time that he had had to struggle to keep still and only allow himself to tighten the grip on his katana, prepared to react when or if things went out of control.

Only to find himself once again totally flabbergasted at the sight of the two boys hugging each other and then acting as though nothing had happened at all. It had been bewildering and totally incomprehensible but yet a part of him couldn't help but think that that was right, that it was something his sensei and his teammates would have approved of, that he should allow it to happen.

So feeling more alive than he had been for a long, long time he had watched how the two boys separated, promising to each other to meet again for the next day and then he had proceeded to trail the blond until the boy had safely reached his messy apartment, making a mental note to himself to tell the Hokage that he should send someone to clean up, as living surrounded by litter wasn't exactly healthy for a child, Rin and Kushina would probably have had a fit if they could have seen that.

Hidden in the shadows of the buildings surrounding the apartment he had watched how an excited Naruto had made himself Ramen (kami, one day he had to somehow convince the boy to eat vegetables and fruits) and then had told his plants (it was sad really, but he supposed that plants were better company than him, plants at least couldn't get someone killed, at least the ones Naruto had, of course there are plants, used in combat, which could very well get one killed but that was something entirely else) how he had made a real friend who was 'like absolutely kickass awesome and cool'.

When Hawk had shown up to release him, he had immediately headed to the Hokage's office, knowing that while the Hokage had been there to witness the two boy's prank the Sandaime would probably want to know more about the boy's relationship to each other, especially what sort of impact it had on Naruto.

There he had been told the details about the boy, Madara, after he had told the village's leader today's report, mainly focusing on the encounter between Naruto and Madara which had made the Hokage chuckle more than just once, well, in retrospect, it had been pretty hilarious. And what he had been told sounded more than just a little farfetched at some points, what he had promptly told the old man, _because this was about Naruto_, who had then reassured him that as of now they'd wait and watch and only assign some ANBU to keep an eye on him.

Dog hadn't been happy at all about the handling of the situation. It was too…passive but then again it suited the way he had been acting around Naruto perfectly and like the obedient soldier he was, he hadn't objected any further and had nodded in acceptance, only sparing the briefest time on the thought how _they _would react to his decision. Probably not with cheers and laughter.

The last thing he had done before he had left the office once again had been to request to do Naruto watch duty tomorrow too. He had to watch, watch Naruto, the boy and how their friendship would take its course. Fortunately, the Hokage had granted his request as there had been no missions which were assigned to him for tomorrow and so here he was, witnessing another meeting between Naruto and Madara in one of the many Academy's classrooms.

This time it seemed an Uchiha was involved too and it had been strange, confusing and highly amusing which Dog supposed was the norm in a friendship such as theirs. Later on, they went outside and it was very endearing how Naruto showed Madara to his fellow classmates, positively bragging and with interest he watched the talk between Madara and, as he recalled now, Sasuke, the latter storming away, after shouting something which made about as much sense to him as it apparently did to Madara.

Really, wherever that boy went, something interesting was bound to happen, an enigma indeed and for Naruto's sake and for satisfying his own curiosity, but mostly for the former, he would solve it.

As the day progressed, Dog found only more reasons to be wary of the Uchiha boy and his friendship with his sensei's son.

/o\

"Hey, Madara!" Naruto yelled, running to the Uchiha who was still looking quite baffled. "What would you do to make the teme look so pissed?"

Madara turned to Naruto, noting how the other children were also watching him curiously and quickly directed his attention back to Naruto. "I have no idea," he answered sincerely.

The blond frowned and opened his mouth to say something but apparently changed his mind and shook his head. "Whatever. I want to show you how awesome I am at swinging! I can get really, really high."

However, the blond's attempt at showing his friend his swinging skills was cut short when the bell once again signaled the end of the break and the children had to return to their respective classrooms.

Luckily, the rest of the school day turned out to be far more interesting than the last lesson. With no little amount of amusement Madara watched how the students struggled to perform the Henge jutsu correctly. The results of their attempts ranged from impressive to hilariously pathetic, unfortunately, Naruto's fit in the latter.

He supposed that if one had great imagination that…thing before him could count as the instructor who was supervising the current lesson, the real one going around and telling the students how to improve and what their mistakes were.

It was human, everything was more or less at its right place but even though Madara wasn't exactly an expert on anatomy he was sure that the nose wasn't supposed to take up half of the face or that one hand should be as big as an entire leg. Maybe it was because of that less than flattering attempt to transform into his sensei that said sensei didn't go over to the blond and gave him the help which he desperately needed, but then again other's results of the Henge technique probably didn't do well on the teacher's ego either but yet he helped them, even laughing and telling them that he wasn't that fat or old yet.

So Madara supposed it was again linked to that issue the villagers seemed to have with Naruto. Figures. Sitting cross-legged on the ground, absently watching Naruto's progress or lack thereof and blithely ignoring his 'brother's' intense glare aimed at him, he mused about the possibilities he had to find out the secret as people seemed to try to avoid that topic and to make things even more difficult he was a foreigner, barely being an inhabitant of the village for a day so people wouldn't trust him much, especially not to the degree to which they would let him in on the secret.

And he didn't want to confirm some people's suspicions, going around, asking for the revelation of the village's secrets. So as of now he'd try to figure it out on his own and when he found a plausible explanation, he'd try to gauge out people's reactions to check for the validity of his explanation. It sounded like a sound plan. Nodding satisfied to himself, he reflected, recalling on everything which might help him in his search of the truth.

About the time his theories revolved around wolves, monster parents and possessed beings, Madara knew that it was of no use. Sighing, he went to Naruto, finally taking pity on him. Usually, it was best to figure it out on his own but he knew that some people needed a helpful push so that they could succeed and seeing Naruto it was clear that the boy needed the necessary push.

"Naruto," he called out while approaching the blond.

"What?!" Naruto snapped, his face still grimacing in concentration, angry that Madara had made him lose focus which he needed to get the jutsu right. Stupid jutsu, why wouldn't it work the way it did with the teme? Sasuke had managed to do a good one a while ago.

Madara raised an eyebrow at the tone. "Well, I wanted to help you out," he drawled, a smirk slowly making its way to his lips. "But if you don't want to, maybe I should go help my new brother. I'm sure he will appreciate my help and perhaps I will even consider teaching him some new techniques which-"

He couldn't say anything further as Naruto quite loudly interrupted, "Teach _me_ Madara! I wanna be the best and kick asses! Please? Pretty please?" he added, looking at him with puppy eyes which were impossible to resist.

Hn, it seemed as if he had lost at his own game.

Letting out a long-suffering sigh, he activated his Sharingan.

"Whoa! Your eyes are red and weird!" Naruto exclaimed loudly, goggling at him with something akin to shock and childish awe.

Idly, Madara considered gagging the boy as the eyes of the whole class were set on him at the blond's exclamation.

"Yes," he answered the unspoken question which was floating through several people's mind. "It's the Sharingan." With this said, he turned back to Naruto who scratched the back of his head sheepishly, no doubt having noticed that his friend wasn't amused.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. It figured probably that that so-called Uchiha had the Sharingan, anything less would have never convinced his father to adopt him. Some part of him couldn't help but seriously consider the offer the boy had indirectly made to him. He was aware that the wanna-be Uchiha had noticed that he was eavesdropping and Sasuke might not be the sort of genius Itachi was but he wasn't that dumb to not notice the pointed look the foreign boy gave him or fail to realize the meaning behind it. He gritted his teeth, mentally slapping himself for even thinking of asking for a…a bastard's help! Father would be disappointed if he ever caught wind of him training with a disgrace, no matter how talented. "Stupid idiot. Why the hell do you have to be here?" he muttered under his breath, ignoring the squeals of delight as his fangirls, who had turned their attention back to him when he had started to form the required hand seals for the transformation, watched how he had managed to successfully perform the Henge yet again.

Madara resisted the sudden urge to sneeze. His ears caught the low mutter of Naruto which was something along the lines of 'stupid teme, trying to show off'. Deciding to ignore it, he went on with what he had originally in mind, "Try to perform the Henge, I will see what you are doing wrong."

Naruto frowned, tilting his head to one side. "I don't get it, why would you need those freaky eyes to help me?"

"With the Sharingan, which by the way are not called freaky eyes, I can have a look at your chakra flow, while it's not as good as the Byakugan is rumored to be, it will still tell me enough so that I can see what you're doing wrong with your chakra," Madara elaborated.

"Alright, I'll do the Henge and you use these freaky eyes," Naruto agreed without missing a beat, his hands slowly starting to form the seals.

Black tomoes whirled in his red eyes as Madara intensely gazed at Naruto or rather at his chakra which was flowing through his entire body, focused, as the blond was attempting to use a jutsu. His jaw nearly dropped at the massive amount of chakra the boy used. No wonder that it didn't work properly! Controlling such an amount of chakra was difficult even without being a not so talented boy who was still learning the basics of chakra and jutsu.

He didn't know if the negligence of the instructors or them simply not knowing about it and thus had never told Naruto was to be blamed. It was clear that Naruto had never done the necessary chakra control exercises and while that might be okay with young children whose natural chakra control could handle their relatively miniscule chakra amount, this was definitely not the case with Naruto. Hell, if he were honest to himself, he might admit that the blond had twice as much or even far more than that chakra if compared to him. It was slightly troubling and embarrassing but it came with a price which was not being able to use these massive amounts efficiently so he figured it was all fair and well in the end.

But he had planned to help Naruto and something like misplaced pride shouldn't really stop him from doing so…Never mind that if Naruto got a grasp over his chakra, he could very well wipe the floor with Madara's ass.

He was about to tell the boy about his discovery when something in Naruto's chakra system caught his attention. Narrowing his red eyes, he stared even harder, pouring more chakra into his eyes so that he could see. Incredible chakra which didn't felt human, its center being Naruto's stomach. He peered even closer. Chakra like this, what was the cause of it?

Just a bit more, then-

"_Argh!_" Naruto shouted, clutching his stomach with the one hand and his forehead with the other.

As soon as Naruto's yell reached his ears, Madara broke eye contact and stumbled a few steps back, panting heavily, beads of sweat trailing down his face. For one second, he could have sworn he had seen something…inhuman locked behind a cell. What the hell…

"Something has shouted 'Madara' and eyes in my head, something fluffy," Naruto muttered, rubbing his stomach.

Alright, whatever that had been was definitely strange and as Madara subtly eyed his surroundings, while most of the students simply looked surprised, confused and worried or a mix of all three of them, he didn't miss the look the instructor shot Naruto who was still pressing his hand against the stomach. It was pure, unaltered fear, tinged with suspicion which was aimed at him. It wasn't that hard to figure out that whatever he had just seen was a major lead to Naruto's and the village's secret.

For the rest of the lesson and school day in fact Madara tried to avoid Naruto without the blond noticing it. It was clear that whatever had happened had been caused by him or rather by the activation and the usage of his Sharingan on the boy. Apparently, news had already spread in the Academy, as the instructors were now eyeing him warily and it was simply a further reason for him to put some distance between them for now, until he was able to figure out the issue.

Getting in trouble for harming a boy, an inhabitant of the village, no matter how hated said boy was, was definitely not going to make the villagers see him in a good light and if Naruto noticed the sudden uncomfortable tension whenever Madara was near him, he never pointed it out and in that fashion the rest of the school day passed slowly.

Nothing exciting happened and for once Madara was glad for that as he had probably already gotten into enough trouble today. The bell ringed once again, signaling the long-awaited end of the school day and students quickly filed out the building, their parents already waiting outside for them to fetch them.

Out of the corner of his eye, Madara could see a flash of black. No doubt had Sasuke opted for avoiding him, after their 'conversation' had ended spectacularly badly. However, there was no way in hell that he'd just leave that issue alone and with this in mind he was about to follow his new brother, when something tucked on his shirt. Annoyed, he whipped around to meet the solemn gaze of Naruto.

Something about his eyes made Madara be slightly on edge. "Do you hate me now?" the blond asked, face blank in a way that would make any shinobi proud.

"How did you come to that conclusion?" Madara asked uncomfortably, although he already knew why.

"You're avoiding me," Naruto pointed out quietly, scowling at the ground as though it had offended him greatly.

Kami, why the hell was everything so complicated? Although being from hostile clans, Hashirama's and his friendship had never frustrated him so strongly before, well, at least if one didn't count the one time, when he had learned that Hashirama had killed the other Madara but this had never happened to him personally and he was fairly sure that it would never happen again.

Who would have thought that the blond could be so perceptive, seeing as he was usually oblivious of about everything? Resisting the urge to groan he put one hand on Naruto's shoulder and looked directly into his eyes. It should be alright, after all, he hadn't activated his Sharingan.

"Look, Naruto. I've no idea what the hell is wrong with all of these people but as far as I know, you're alright and unless you really fuck things up, I see no reason why I should hate you. And you'd do well to never forget that," Madara told him, his eyes never leaving the other boy's face, the grip on the blond's shoulder tightening unconsciously .

Naruto only stared at him in wonder as though he couldn't quite believe it but he quickly recovered and nodded sharply. "It's a promise then," he said softly, for a split second looking far more mature than his seven years could possibly suggest. "Iruka-sensei and jiji told me that you should never go back on your word."

"They're right," Madara agreed. "It's a dishonorable thing to do."

"So you won't hate me without a reason?" Naruto clarified, staring intensely at the Uchiha.

"No, I won't," Madara replied earnestly, already turning around to leave again.

The blond's expression was unreadable as he said, "Don't lie ever." As soon as the words were out Naruto dashed away without any further elaboration on his words.

First Sasuke, now Naruto, tsk, he'd never understand brats.

Deciding that whatever was wrong with Naruto couldn't be too bad and that he had more pressing matters to deal with, he shrugged it off for the time being.

Sasuke's chakra signature was heading to the Uchiha compound he noticed as he tried to pin down the location of the boy in order to speed up his search for the boy.

Frowning slightly, Madara pondered how he should proceed now. Seeking another confrontation with Sasuke had been the first thing which had crossed his mind but he knew very well how stubborn an Uchiha could be and if Sasuke was determined about trying to avoid him, it would be hard to get him to speak and question him about the meaning of his words which were even more confusing than Naruto's parting words had been. Had he already mentioned how puzzling a child's mind was?

So perhaps the wisest action to take was to do nothing at all and to allow Sasuke to cool down so that they could talk calmly about the reason which had made Sasuke harbor a grudge against him. He nearly snorted at the mere thought, however, he had yet to see an argument between two Uchiha go calmly, the best he could possibly hope for was that in the end Sasuke wouldn't hate him even more.

That was the reason, one shouldn't be hated or at least disliked by an Uchiha to begin with, it was hard for his clan to let go of those negative feelings, although he could sincerely claim that he was less prone to such these things, what with his friendship with Hashirama and the involved hatred at first when he had discovered who his friend truly had been. A Senju. Madara was still unsure how their friendship had survived this, even after Hashirama had discovered too that Madara wasn't just from any shinobi clan but a proud member of the infamous Uchiha clan. But then again it was hard to abandon a friendship such as theirs, especially when Hashirama had set his mind on maintaining their friendship at all cost. If it had only been up to Madara, they'd have long ceased to be friends…

He shook his head, it was no use to dwell on the past. Putting his mind back to the present where it belonged, he frowned deeply as yet another thought crossed him. In his excitement he had totally forgotten about his dreaded appointment with Fugaku. It would be no use trying to deliberately postpone it as it would only arouse suspicion and make things even worse.

For a moment he toyed with the idea of leaving the village but quickly dismissed it. Even if he did not take the seal, which right now was imperceptive for the eye, into account, he had no clue where he should head. The clan was everything he knew since his birth and loyalty to his clan had been drilled into his head as long as he could remember, leaving the clan forever, or even betraying it, was something he simply could not imagine doing.

And even if he was somehow able to let go of his unshakable clan loyalty, he doubted that he would get far, after all, there was still that tracking seal Fugaku had placed on him to think of. Madara was certain that he would have dozens of ninja on his trail before he had even left the surrounding forests of Konoha and he didn't trust his skills in Fuinjutsu, which were practically nonexistent, enough to attempt to tamper with the seal so that it didn't work properly and thus give him more time to escape. Although even on the off chance that the seal wouldn't work for whatever reason, if he were to bet who would accomplish their goal first, him, trying to leave without any harm or at least none of the grave kinds, or the Leaf nin, trying to capture him, he'd choose the latter without any hesitation.

He was fast and he was able to conceal himself and cover his tracks but against a village, inhabited by who knows how many major ninja clans, some of them being without a doubt experts on tracking, it was nothing.

His shoulder slumped a little at the realization. Was there really no other way than him being executed, the only reason for that being his very existence? Maybe, Fugaku wouldn't only look at him as the person he or rather his self had been in the past and offer him a chance to prove that he was his own person who could and would change (because there was no way in hell that he'd end up utterly batshit insane again ). Perhaps the leader of the village, the Hokage, and whoever else was in charge of the village would come to the same conclusion too and spare him or maybe he was just trying to convince himself into thinking that he could somehow escape the inevitable.

Hashirama and probably Naruto were to be blamed for his surprisingly optimistic mindset as he set off, heading to the KPMF headquarters, a small hope still insisting that the following encounter wouldn't end with him being dead or even worse off.

It was probably in the nature of time that whenever one wanted it to pass as slowly as possible, time seemed to pass in a blink of an eye and as was in Madara's case he found himself before the entrance of the headquarters, still no possible idea on how he should handle the delicate situation he was currently in taking form in his mind.

With a heavy sigh and the expression of one who was walking agonizingly slowly right into the clutches of death, knowing and having come to terms with the fact that soon everything could be very well over, Madara forced his legs to take a step after the other, with each step drawing nearer to Fugaku's office.

The Uchiha tried to at least take comfort from the fact that if indeed one of the worst possible outcomes occurred, namely his death, he'd at least see his fallen comrades again and it was not like there were too many people in this time who would actually grieve for his death, most people didn't even know him personally and his so-called family hadn't known him long enough to be actually sad over his death, and Naruto…

Madara was aware of the fact that he might be very likely the only real friend the blond had and that the boy would be terribly hurt, if he learned of his death. However, he couldn't really muster up guilt and sadness as he was far too concerned about his own well-being.

And again, it wasn't like they were the best of friends, he was sure that given time, the blond would get over it, what was the worst which could happen, anyway? The brat turning berserk, he nearly snorted at the thought that someone as Naruto who was about as threatening as a kicked puppy could ever bodily harm people.

His uplifted mood only lasted briefly when he suddenly found himself face to face with the door leading to the clan head's office.

It wasn't as though he wasn't prepared to die, far from it, since he could walk there had been always the threat of death hovering over his head like the sword of Damocles and death was something he had encountered many times. However, it was something entirely different to be killed in the heat of battle as opposed to walking straight into the hands of your executer, painfully aware of it and in a situation in which one was absolutely powerless to do anything to change that.

Powerless. How he hated that word.

Knocking on the door and after a low 'come in' entering the room, he braced himself, taking a deep breath to calm himself. If he was to die, he'd do it while keeping his dignity and he would not start to fall on his knees, begging for mercy, or totally lose his composure and run wildly around like a beheaded chicken. Only the thought of it disgusted him greatly.

"It took quite a while," Fugaku began, as expected, sitting behind a desk which was piled with stacks of paper. Back in his time, the clan head had only gotten to see paper when signing a contract or receiving a message for some mission, ah, the good old times.

"I was busy getting myself familiar with the village and as far as I know you didn't state any exact time. Nevertheless, I apologize for any inconveniences my delayed arrival might have caused," Madara said politely, outwardly calm. It was always wise to be polite to the person who was deciding whether or not your life was going to end, especially if it was still not set entirely in stone.

"I see," Fugaku said, his eyes slightly narrowed. He stood up, taking out a vial and some weird sort of object which had a needle or something similar attached to its end out of the drawer of his desk. Madara frowned.

Seeing the boy's wary expression, the clan head elaborated, "This is what you call a syringe and I will use it to take a blood sample of you which one of my men will control to see if you are indeed a true Uchiha in blood, although I'm willing to also accept slight changes, seeing that your clan has diverged from mine quite some time ago. Now, bare your forearm, which one is not of importance, and then I will push the syringe into your arm. It does not hurt," he hastily added as he saw Madara grimace.

Nodding in understanding, Madara did as he was told, albeit reluctantly, but then again it couldn't be too bad, even if he usually never let himself get stabbed on purpose. Pain erupted in his arm as something pointy was entering his skin and he let out a low hiss, eyes closed, however, the pain was quickly gone, as was the foreign object.

Opening his eyes again, he saw how his blood was filled into the vial and then being closed up. With something akin to morbid fascination he watched how the red liquid, which was once part of his body, swashed in its container.

Fugaku stuffed the vial in one of his pockets, attached to his flak jacket.

"Now, we'll go over your memories," Fugaku informed him.

"Go over my memories?" Madara repeated dumbly. Shit, now, he was going to be busted for sure. "Why? Isn't me being an Uchiha proof enough?"

Fugaku narrowed his eyes, which were already turning slowly deep red. "This alone would only prove that you might be a bastard," he told him bluntly. "To see if you are truly from another Uchiha clan, I have to see your memories of that clan, however, even your memory could have been tampered with. If you bear the blood of an Uchiha AND present me the memories of that other clan, I'm willing to trust you completely."

Madara nearly snorted at the last part. Trust his ass. However, the main part of his mind was trying not to freak out completely, only a small part of him having the wits to try to come up with a good excuse in a last desperate attempt to avoid the revelation of his identity.

But his mind came up with nothing and as he was experiencing the familiar feeling of having his head crushed by something heavy he knew that it had begun. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see other shinobi, most likely Uchiha, appear out of thin air, no doubt making sure that he wouldn't suddenly try something funny. Having come to that conclusion, he ignored his instincts which screamed at him to activate his Sharingan to counterattack. It wouldn't be of any use, anyway, what with him being surrounded by a group of most likely skilled Sharingan user.

Mental daggers ripped through his memories and before his inner eye he saw flashes of his life, life as it had been before the madness had started and though he knew that it would cause him unbearable pain, he still tried to resist and at least conceal some of his memories.

His head felt like it was about to shatter and only with great effort he managed to hold in a loud scream and moments before he entirely lost consciousness, he cursed his foolishness for trying to fight back and harm himself in the process.

Now, he wouldn't even be aware when he got killed. But then again, that might not be too bad.

The last glimpse he got to see of Fugaku was an expression of pure shock and then everything was dark, a lone thought still floating in his otherwise blank mind, _shit._

* * *

**A/N:** Now, the truth is more or less finally out.

And as for the scene with Madara getting to see a short glimpse of Kurama, I was sort of inspired by the one scene in which Sasuke was able to get wholly into Naruto's mindscape with Kurama's cell and was able to actually interact with him. Madara wasn't able to do the same as he didn't intended to do it, unlike Sasuke.

I don't know when I will be able to update again, seeing that I go on a class trip this weekend and after that go to Vietnam to visit my family during the summer holidays. So you might have to wait a month, am I not evil for ending it with such a terrible cliffhanger?


	11. Some Serious Talk

**But I AM Madara – Some Serious Talk**

**A/N:** I apologize for the long wait. I planned to make the chapter even longer but I've decided to split it up so that you guys could finally get to read a new chapter, even if it's not much. The second part will hopefully be released within the next week.

My stay in Vietnam was great and I really want to thank every single one of my readers. Without you, this story would have never gotten that far. I still can't quite believe the amount of feedback it has received.

Special thanks to **WynterSky** who is the beta for this story. She has already done the first chapter and her work is great!

* * *

"You are dismissed. "

"Hai," the masked shinobi said, before he vanished.

Danzo frowned as he read the reports spread before him on his desk. They were intel gathered by his ROOT spies and by the way the reports seemed to match, they could be considered reliable.

According to them, an Uchiha bastard called Madara was adopted by the clan and to make matters even more suspicious (the clan rarely, if ever, decided to adopt any of their members' illegitimate children) it was the clan head himself who had chosen to take the boy in. There should have been warning bells ringing in every reasonable person's mind.

Hiruzen was many things but reasonable was not one of them. That foolish man had really allowed that boy to become a citizen of the village, consequently also allowing him to be a Leaf nin, a part of the village's military, with only knowing the vaguest of background information on that boy. And all because Hiruzen apparently didn't want to alienate the Uchiha clan any further.

Danzo barely resisted the urge to shake his head in disbelief. Didn't Hiruzen realize that that clan would strike, no matter how respectfully they were treated by the village? The seeds for rebellion were sowed since the foundation of the village. Didn't that man learn anything from his sensei, the Second?

Picking up another piece of paper which described several encounters of the Uchiha with the Kyuubi boy, he contemplated. Assassinating the boy would be so simple, after all his ninja were specialized in the arts of silent killing, leaving behind no traces. The Uchiha clan might become suspicious, oh, they definitely would, but what could they do without any proof?

Danzo would only speed up the inevitable and every sane person could see who would win in a fight between the clan and the village. If the clan were to attack much sooner because of that provocation, all the better for him. Unlike Hiruzen, he had no intention whatsoever to peacefully negotiate with the clan until they have grown strong enough to successfully stage a coup and take over the village in the process. With them starting to attack the village, even Hiruzen wouldn't remain idle and they could finally get rid of that threat which had been lurking in the village for far too long time. True, the clan did provide powerful and sometimes loyal shinobi, that clan head's eldest son was a good example, but if compared to the danger they posed, it was best to just eliminate them all. He had been far too lenient in this regard for too long anyway.

However, there was one thing which restrained him from giving the order to kill. What was the clan head's reason for adopting the boy anyway? Fugaku must have been aware of the fact that he would arouse people's suspicions by doing that, yet he had done it anyway. There must be a reason to that, a reason which made clan take that risk, something special, valuable about that boy. But what?

Or was he simply reading too much into it? It could also be entirely possible that that boy was Fugaku's offspring… But the Uchiha clan head didn't strike him as that sort of man. Of course, he could simply ignore the whys of the boy's membership in the clan and usually he would.

Unbeknownst to him, it was the same reason which had made Hiruzen hesitate in his decision: Naruto. Or rather Madara's relationship to the Kyuubi container. Of course, it was for entirely different reasons. Danzo had always wanted to use the Uzumaki boy as a weapon for the village. But thanks to Hiruzen, who kept on talking about allowing the boy to have a normal childhood and whatnot, his plans regarding the boy had never come to fruition. Although the other villages did use their jinchuuriki to their fullest extent, that was one of the topics Hiruzen remained to be stubborn on.

The ANBU spies Hiruzen ordered to keep an eye on the boy made also sure that he would not get in contact with the boy, either himself or through one of his ROOT ninja. Knowing that Danzo would cross the final line, if he still insisted on trying, he had carefully kept a distance from the boy, getting his information regarding the boy from his spies in the regular ANBU troops.

However, if he were to get close to that Uchiha boy, who was currently one of the closest people to the jinchuuriki, which in itself was not a hard feat to achieve, seeing that usually people did not have the desire to even be on civil terms with the boy, he could manipulate the jinchuuriki through the boy.

Danzo doubted that Hiruzen would use even more of his resources on watching the boy and even if he did, he wouldn't be able to do it for a long time, at the latest when the Uchiha had achieved the rank of Chunin and the clan would then insist to stop the watching, seeing as the boy would be then a true ninja of the village and has already been able to prove his loyalty. Wanting to resolve conflicts in the most peaceful way possible, Hiruzen would eventually relent. This time, Danzo would use that fatal weakness to his advantage.

He'd have to be subtle as to not alert Hiruzen and the boy's ANBU guard but he had always been a man who had prided himself on his subtlety and efficacy.

But whom should he choose to slowly get close to the Uchiha? It would be far too soon to approach him in person, not to mention that the clan's warning bells would immediately ring, if they found out about it. No, he'd use one of his agents, a child of similar age as the boy.

He let his gaze travel over the papers as he categorically searched for suitable ninja in his mind. His eyes widened slightly as he finally found the perfect candidate for this job.

A boy of thirteen years, who, despite the ROOT'S policy to abandon their feelings, was said to be kind and absent-minded but also brash and impatient. Who would have ever thought that one of his ninja would be of use to him because of their emotions still being intact?

Danzo allowed a small smile to grace his lips. He'd found the man or rather the boy for this mission.

"Hyo!" he called out.

Immediately, a masked man with dark, spiky hair appeared before the ROOT leader. Before Hyo could ask what his leader required of him, Danzo already said, "I want to have a talk with Shin. Bring him to me."

The masked man bowed deeply. "Yes, Danzo-sama." And in the blink of an eye, he was gone.

o.O.o

Hashirama looked over his shoulder. Nothing. He shook his head. Most likely he had just been imagining things. Frowning, he redirected his attention back to the river and slowly crouched down to pick up a pebble from the ground. Eyes slightly narrowed, he raised and threw the pebble across, watching it bounce off the surface of the water, creating ripples as it went, finally hitting the other side with a soft thud.

The nostalgic sight made his mood drop even further and with a heavy sigh, he dropped down to the ground and put his legs closely to his chest, hugging them.

One month had passed since Madara had vanished. He'd been asking Tobirama to make sure that he had really went to the river that day and that it wasn't some strange dream. But this hope had been quickly crushed when an annoyed Tobirama had told him that yes, he'd gone away to do whatever he had been up to and that he shouldn't bother him while he was training.

Despite himself, his lips quirked up in a fond smile. At least, he still had his little brother.

No matter how much he had tried, he still couldn't wrap his mind around the reason for Madara's sudden disappearance after it had been indeed confirmed that Hashirama hadn't been only imagining things. Of course, he had his suspicions but each one was even sillier than the previous one. The ones so far which made even the tiniest bit of sense were the ones in which Madara had been abducted by some enemy clan.

Although he was generally praised for his outstanding abilities, he was still far from powerful so it was highly possible that Madara had been snatched away, right under his very nose without him even recognizing. How exactly something like that was even possible, Hashirama didn't know. But then again, there were so many clans who have only kami-sama knows how many secret jutsu up their sleeve that he couldn't rule out that possibility as impossible.

The reason as to why Hashirama had been left unharmed could be easily explained in that case. The ones who had supposedly abducted Madara could be allies of the Senju which would then automatically make them enemies of the Uchiha clan, thus making it entirely plausible that they would do such a thing.

When he had first come up with that conclusion, it had sent chills up and down his spine because that would mean that the clan had known of his activities outside the clan compound. But then surly his father, the clan head, would have wanted to have a talk with him and then would have punished him severely for interacting with a clan enemy, despite knowing his true identity.

As that had not occurred, it would mean that his father didn't know or that he had simply decided not to tell Hashirama that he was aware of his son's traitorous actions. Probably because he wouldn't have gotten a chance to assault Madara if Hashirama had been told beforehand. If he had been being watched, then his father would have been surely informed of the fact that they were very good friends and that Hashirama wouldn't have just stood idly.

If that was indeed the case then Hashirama couldn't help but admire his father's self-control for being able to act as though nothing was amiss in his vicinity, seeing that in his father's eyes he must have been a traitor by now.

But it still wouldn't explain why his father still hasn't done anything even after the abduction had been successful. So maybe - although he could barely believe it- his father had decided to forgive him and pretended that Hashirama had been a spy, intent on getting information on the enemy, all along. Then it would also explain why he had been told none of it so as to avoid that he made a big fuss about it and expose to the people, who knew of the abduction, that he had been no spy at all. He could only imagine what would ensue after this particular revelation. And it certainly wouldn't be pretty.

Having concluded this all, Hashirama had decided to show even more interest in the clan affairs to firstly show that he is still very much a loyal clan member and to secondly be let in on the clan's plans, current and past, especially the past. So several days later after he had come up with that plan, he had gone to his father and asked him to tell him more of their clan's enemies (never even so much as uttering a word of the Uchiha).

His father had been surprised at first but after he had been given the explanation that Hashirama had finally realized how serious he had to take his position as the current clan heir, his father had been more than happy to oblige. Apparently, his father had come to the conclusion that now without any attractions in the form of enemy clan leader's sons, Hashirama could be finally molded into the perfect clan leader his father had always hoped for.

His brother had been more suspicious of his newfound interest of the clan affairs but since Hashirama was actually taking things very seriously for once, he didn't complain. All in all, his plan had been successful up to now but its progress was so_ frustratingly_ slow. Only kami-sama knew what had happed to Madara since he had been kidnapped and the more time passed the more likely it was that Madara was dead. An enemy who had revealed all of his information was a useless one and Hashirama, though being an optimist, didn't even hope for the possibility that Madara would be kept alive as a hostage or as a bargaining chip. The Uchiha clan was the kind of clan which could afford losing one of its member-even if said member was the clan heir- if it meant that the clan as a whole would not be harmed. It wasn't even that outlandish to assume that the Uchiha would rather kill him than allow their Kekkei Genkai or any sensitive information of their clan to fall into enemy's hands. But then again his clan was probably no better. That thought made him sick to his stomach.

It had been just too much and the knowledge that it might be his fault, because he had been the one insisting on staying friends and meeting up with each other, didn't make him feel better. He let out another heavy sigh, metaphorical dark clouds hovering over his head.

Despite him being in a pathetic state, he didn't miss the sound which would usually accompany the throwing of a kunai or shuriken so he immediately jumped to the left, watching the spot, where he had been just a mere moment ago, being embedded by kunai. His eyes widened even farther as he recognized what was attached to the hilts of the kunais: explosion tags.

This time he barely managed to get out of the explosion's range as he poured chakra into his legs to jump away. The ground shook as the tags' destructive power was unleashed and Hashirama instinctively closed his eyes as he fell to the ground, safely out of harm's way, putting his hands over his head to avoid getting hit by flying objects caused by the explosion .

As soon as the smoke had cleared, he leapt to his feet again, taking on his usual fighting stance. Every muscle in his body was tense and sweat was pouring down his face. That was not good. He had no armor on to provide him protection and he had left all his weapons at the clan compound. It was the first time he cursed his carelessness in that regard.

"Show yourself!" he called out. Although he doubted that his enemy would show himself and lose his advantage, it was still worth a try. Amazingly enough, a figure did emerge from the woods. A gasp nearly escaped his throat as he got a closer look at the approaching person.

"No way! Are-are you…Izuna?!" Madara had mentioned his brother only a few times, mostly only telling him his resolve to protect his last remaining sibling and the fact that Hashirama even knew his name was thanks to a slip of Madara. So although he barely knew anything about Madara's little brother, it was without a doubt him, the similarities in appearance couldn't be a coincidence.

Apparently he had been spot-on with his assumption as Izuna narrowed his crimson red eyes (was he in possession of the Sharingan?) "How do you know that?" he hissed, the grip on his kunai tightening until his knuckles turned white.

"Madara told me," Hashirama replied calmly, although a bubble of excitement was slowly starting to form in the pit of his stomach. Surely Madara's brother had to know something about his current whereabouts.

"Why would he tell an outsider like you? A Senju?" The last word was spat as though it was an insult which for an Uchiha it probably was.

Hashirama's excitement faded. Something told him that this conversation wasn't going to be easy. He sighed. "Look, it's long story," he began, absently scratching the back of his head, "so to sum it up, we've met here one day without knowing each other's identity. We talked, trained, had fun and somewhere along the way we became friends. Then-"

"Then you found out about nii-san's identity and betrayed him," Izuna cut him off, brandishing his kunai in his anger.

"No!" Hashirama exclaimed loudly. "I never sell out my friends. We both found out each other's identities but we still managed just fine." Well, Madara did after some persuasion and great kami-sama, didn't that sound like some weird sort of romance story Mito-chan would sometimes force him to listen to?

Izuna scowled at the boy before him who was blushing over nothing. "You really want me to believe that?"

"I know that it's hard to believe but you've got to trust me on that."

This earned him a disbelieving snort. "A Senju? Surely, you jest."

"Madara trusted me," Hashirama pointed out.

"And look where that got him," the dark-haired boy said bitterly, his face growing even darker, when suddenly his lips stretched into a smile that cut like a knife. "But thanks to you, I've awakened my Sharingan. The bloodline for my brother, huh."

Hashirama was perhaps not as quick on the uptake as his little brother but he wasn't dumb, although Madara often begged to differ. Still, he had a hard time actually comprehending what Izuna was trying to say and there was also another thing which was bothering him.

"What are you trying to say and how do you know that I'm a Senju?" Hashirama demanded to know.

"I've been trying to find out a bit more of what had happened to my brother. My father along with the rest of my clan have already abandoned him, deeming him a worthless fool if he couldn't even take care of himself," the boy nearly choked on his last words. No matter how battle-hardened one was, hearing his own father dismiss his child just like that wasn't something you could stomach easily.

Call him an optimistic idiot but Hashirama was certain that if it weren't for the hard times they were living in and the fact that as the respective heads of their clans, they had to care for the whole clan, their father would allow themselves to care, to care for their children and grieve for their deaths. But alas, the reality they were facing was hard and he knew that if he were to tell the Uchiha boy these words, they would be only taken as hollow comfort. So he remained silent and waited for Izuna to continue.

"But I didn't just want to give up. He's my last sibling. Like hell I'd just abandon him!" The tomoes in his red eyes were spinning wildly by now as if they were responding to his emotional turmoil. He seemed to notice what Hashirama had been thinking as he pointed at his red eyes with a bitter smile.

"I awakened them when I heard that the search for my brother had been abandoned. When I heard my father's words."

Hashirama wasn't quite sure what conditions have to be met to activate the Sharingan but he already had an idea of what it meant to awaken the Uchiha's bloodline. He gulped.

"Look, I-I'm as clueless as you about this matter so why won't we team up? I mean with the two of us on different sides, it might be easier to pick up useful information on Madara's whereabouts. We could…I dunno, arrange meeting where we could share information with each other and make some plans and stuff like that…" he hesitantly trailed off, looking hopefully at the other boy's face. It revealed nothing.

Hashirama was sure that sighing that much couldn't be considered healthy.

Finally, as Hashirama began to become twitchy due to the silence, Izuna answered, "Meeting in the same way Madara did? I don't want to disappear like he did, Senju."

People often claimed that he had the patience of a saint but even he felt his quickly wearing thin. "Like I've said before, I've got _nothing_ to do with. To be honest, the only thing I know is that me and Madara had a staring competition, I stopped because it got boring. He yelled at me, then he threw a pebble. It somehow went back and hit him in his face. You had to see his expression. It was really funny!" His mood somewhat sobered as he remembered what followed afterwards.

"When I've recovered, Madara was gone and yeah, that's it," he finished his tale lamely, staring at no particular point on the ground. When the silence coming from Izuna dragged on, he looked up to see Izuna staring at him as though someone had challenged him to a staring competition. The fact that he didn't even blink once unnerved Hashirama slightly.

"What?"

The question seemed to make Izuna snap out of some kind of daze. He slowly blinked, his red eyes never leaving Hashirama's face.

"You really want me to believe," he began dangerously calm, "that Madara-nii-san had a staring competition with you? That he hit himself with a stone and then disappeared?!" At this point he was yelling, brandishing his kunai wildly as he stared indecorously at Hashirama who had started to laugh nervously, scratching the back of his head.

"Well, if you put it that way, it does sound silly," he admitted reluctantly.

"I've just repeated what you've said," Izuna said. "And if you really think I'm going to believe it then you're even more stupid than you look," he added.

"Oi!" Hashirama exclaimed indignantly. "Just because you, Uchiha, have no idea of what awesomeness is, it doesn't mean that I have no idea of what it is either."

"If you really think your hair cut is awesome, then you, Senju, not only have inferior eyesight, you lot also lack brains which now that I think of it isn't all that surprising."

Realizing that he was fighting a losing battle there, Hashirama quickly went back to the original topic. "Do you really think that I would feed you with such nonsense if my plan was to trick you into trusting me?"

"Or maybe that's exactly what you want me to believe," Izuna countered.

"Maybe, maybe not," Hashirama acknowledged. "We could both argue until the whole Uzumaki clan has died out without us making any progress but I would rather avoid that. I understand that it isn't easy to trust me, Madara didn't trust me either at the beginning."

"With good reason," Izuna muttered. Hashirama didn't even bother to deign that with a reply.

"You could arrange the time and place and the conditions and whatever else you want of these meetings. I will come alone, with no armor, no weapons and you could come with your whole gear, if that makes you feel comfortable. I only want us to work together on this matter. You're his brother and I'm his friend. We've got the same goal and two work better than one, it's only logical that we should team up. Besides," a wide grin was stretching his lips, "maybe we could become friends too. What do you think, Izuna?"

The Uchiha nearly flinched at the sound of his name but when he replied, it was in fervent tone, "over my dead body." He even crossed his arms, somehow avoiding cutting himself with the kunai while dong this movement. The only thing missing was him sticking his tongue out. Even though Izuna had the weapons and Sharingan, he was just a little brat, just like his brother Tobirama.

His grin became even wider at the thought.

"I will think about it," Izuna finally said, eyes narrowing warily at Hashirama whose face looked as though it was about to split in half. "But I still don't believe you about how nii-san disappeared," he added.

"I barely understand what has happened too," Hashirama admitted, grin gone. "I suspect that it was some kind of secret jutsu from some clan but without any reliable information, I can't be too sure. Anyway, you still haven't answered my question. How did you know that I was a Senju?"

To his surprise, Izuna looked down sheepishly. "I was searching in the woods for hints about Madara. Then I saw you and decided to observe you." This made Hashirama raise his eyebrows. For him not to detect the Uchiha would mean that Izuna was as good as his little brother in stealth or even better.

"You've been muttering and I've overheard something about the Senju and Madara and I've kind of lost it then so I attacked," he explained.

"Oh, I see." There wasn't much to add to such a statement. "So you actually wanted to talk with me?"

"Well," Izuna began, his stiffened posture finally relaxing, "I wanted to interrogate you and then drag you to the Uchiha clan compound for further interrogation. I mean, there was a big chance that I would succeed since you've got no weapons or armor and I've got my Sharingan."

"But you don't actually plan on doing it now… or later, right?" Hashirama asked cautiously. If possible, he'd rather avoid fighting with Izuna.

Izuna shrugged. "It depends."

Hashirama frowned. "On what?"

"It depends on whether I'll actually find out more about Madara or just end up being gagged and tortured somewhere with my brother."

"But then you would have found out your brother's whereabouts," Hashirama joked. A death glare silenced him and kami-sama, the Sharingan could be even more frightening than he had thought, even if said death glare came from a boy as old as his little brother.

"I was only trying to lighten up the mood," Hashirama muttered, face darkened and shoulders slumped forward.

"You obviously failed miserably at that," Izuna noted, eyebrows raised at the pathetic sight before him. "Are you really a friend of nii-san? I can't imagine him…well, hanging out with you."

"What?!" Hashirama said indignantly, his posture straightening again. A startled Izuna only blinked in response, silently wondering if the Senju before him was bipolar. And people accused the Uchiha clan of insanity…

"I've beat your nii-san several times. Not as lame as you thought, right?" His grin couldn't be described as anything other than smug.

Izuna openly gaped. "No way could a lame person with a lame haircut and lame clothes-"

"No need to tell me how lame everything about me is," Hashirama sulked as he dropped to the ground, hugging his legs closely to his chest.

"Something like this is exactly the reason why I think you're lame," Izuna said, a scowl etched on his face. "And anyway, I don't want to waste my time, talking about whether you're lame or not. The answer is obvious anyway." Izuna ignored the even further dropping of Hashirama's mood. "So just answer my question. How can I be sure that it's not some kind of trap of yours? If you can give me a good explanation then we could…" he trailed off, looking to the side.

"I," Hashirama began as he slowly got up, "can't think of any suitable explanation to give you. I can only repeat what I've said before. Anything about the meetings and this truce, alliance or whatever it is in general, it's all up to you. I'm willing to go along with just about everything, if that means we can find Madara."

"Why?" Izuna asked softly, his eyes becoming dark once again. "Why go through all of this for him? You barely know him. Why would you do something even his own father wouldn't do?"

"He's my friend," was the simple explanation. "I don't want to leave behind my friends. It's just something I won't allow myself to do."

After this declaration they lapsed into silence, although it didn't necessarily feel tensed or awkward, in fact it felt…nice, peaceful. He let himself drop to the ground again and stared at the skies above him. Soon enough, he could see movement out of the comer of his eye and he turned his head to watch Izuna plop down beside him. They stayed like that a while until Izuna decided to break the silence.

"How about we meet on top of that cliff not far from here?" Izuna quietly suggested, at some point of time he had closed his eyes, probably in order to let his eyes rest from the strain of his newly awakened Sharingan.

The cliff. Something inside of Hashirama clenched as he remembered that at that particular spot hi- no, _their_ dream of founding a village had started.

"Besides, it will be easier to spot any enemies from such a high point," Izuna went on, ignorant of Hashirama's sudden sullen mood.

"You really are paranoid, do you know that?" Hashirama asked, raising one of his eyebrows.

"Runs in the family, I suppose," Izuna joked, shrugging, absently wondering when exactly he had become so at ease with that Senju boy.

Hashirama turned to wholly face the boy beside him. "What led to that sudden change of heart? Not that I mind or anything…" he trailed off, looking expectantly at Izuna who in response shrugged once again.

"I've realized that you… don't mean me or my clan any harm as of now. So I'm willing to tru- to cooperate with you."

Hashirama tried his hardest not to grin too obviously at the near slip. He could understand though, something like trust wasn't something you could give easily to any person, not as a shinobi.

"And," Izuna continued, making Hashirama's attention snap back to their current conversation, "I've remembered something nii-san told me a while ago. He said that if you want to become stronger, you've got to take risks, that if you want to gain something, you have to be willing to lose something. He sounded a bit like oto-san but I think what he said was right. So in order to find nii-san, I'm willing to bet my life on it."

"Izuna…" Hashirama was at a loss for words. It wasn't every day that you saw such devotion and loyalty to a single person and not a clan.

"What I've been wondering about though is, well, how do you know that _I'm _not going to do something?" Izuna asked curiously, that had been bothering since Hashirama had proposed that alliance.

It didn't take long for Hashirama to reply. "I don't. That's why I told you that I trust you," he said.

"I see." Izuna slowly got up, taking a glance at the altitude of the sun. "It's gotten late. We'll meet in one week at the cliff. I'm on a mission tomorrow."

Quickly, Hashirama tried to recall if he had to go on any missions anytime soon and came up with nothing. "Alright, it's settled then." He could only hope that his father wouldn't assign him to any missions until then, if he did, Hashirama would have to finish it quickly.

Izuna nodded before he started to sprint off and as Hashirama watched the Uchiha leave, he couldn't help but feel that perhaps the future didn't seem all that bleak as he had originally thought, despite his plans for the future.

Somehow, he had befriended yet another Uchiha, even though they hadn't started on the best terms, one of them believing the other to be responsible for his brother's abduction. It was a proof that an end to the war was possible, that the Senju and Uchiha could join hands. And with the prospect of such a bright future-a future of peace-Hashirama found himself grinning all the way back to the compound and even after he had been questioned by his brother and father about what he had been up to.

Yes, he might be an optimist and an idealist but it seemed that in the not so far future he'd have any reason to be.

o.O.o

There weren't many people Naruto could ask for advice.

Asking other children was out of an option. As loath as he was to admit it, he needed an adult's advice for this case and he doubted anyway that the other children were even willing to help him.

The number of adults who didn't despise him could be counted with one hand. There was jiji but he was always so busy and he somehow didn't feel like bothering him with this kind of problem. Then there were the ANBU guards who were always watching him but as far as he knew they'd only talk if it was absolutely required and he didn't know if his problem warranted that.

There was also Iruka-sensei. He was the only teacher Naruto felt comfortable enough with to ask about jutsu and all kinds of other ninja stuff. But he was still a teacher and asking teachers something, especially if it wasn't school-related, was never a good thing, he knew that from experience. He wasn't quite sure if the same could be said about Iruka-sensei but better be safe than sorry or at least it was something along these lines that the teachers always kept telling the students. Be cautious or otherwise you'll fail the mission, blah blah blah.

With all these people being out for various reasons, that only left two certain people. This is why Naruto found himself sitting on a stool, waiting for a bowl of his beloved miso ramen to be placed before him.

"You seem troubled, Naruto-kun," Ayame noted as she placed the steaming bowl o ramen before the blond.

"Itadakimasu!" Naruto exclaimed loudly, clapping his hands together. In a blink of an eye, he had already started slurping down the ramen at an alarming speed.

"Naruto!"

"Whoaht?" he asked, looking up from his bowl, mouth full.

"Don't ignore me, Naruto-kun. It's not very nice and don't talk with your mouth full," Ayame chided.

He gulped down the ramen before he replied, sheepishly scratching the back of his head, "sorry."

Teuchi who was standing in the kitchen, preparing more miso ramen for Naruto, let out a booming laugh. "Ayame, you're acting as if you're his mother. Give the poor boy a break."

"I, I d-didn't mean to patronize him. I just think it's important that he knows such things," Ayame defended herself, her face slightly flushed.

"I don't mind," Naruto said with a grin, placing the chopsticks on top of the bowl. "Seconds, please!"

"Here we go," Teuchi said as he replaced the empty bowl with a new one filled with delicious miso ramen plus roasted pork fillet, Naruto's favorite. "But I'm curious myself. I can tell that something is bothering you, Naruto. So tell us. There is no better way to get rid of one's worries than sharing them with other people over some good ramen."

Grinning, the blond began to tell them about his problem. He knew it had been a good idea to ask them. People who were able to make such amazing food could surely help him!

"I've got a problem."

"A problem?" Ayame asked, worried, not even bothering to work at all. Even Teuchi had redirected nearly all of his attention on Naruto, his trained hands being able to make ramen even without him being totally into it.

"I've got a friend," Naruto blurted out, he was never one to beat around the bush.

Usually, whenever Naruto would make such a declaration, it would be accompanied by a loud yell and a huge grin. For Naruto to say it so calmly and with such a pensive expression…the duo wasn't quite sure what to think of that.

"Naruto-kun, is that friend of yours one of those kinds?" Ayame carefully inquired. She and her father had heard enough tales of Naruto's supposed friends, most of the times it had been simply some sorts of misunderstandings but once in a while there was someone who would try to get close to the boy to do something harmful to him. Luckily, the ANBU had always been able to intervene quickly before something could happen. Still, only the remainder of it made her feel that homicidal urge to stab all the people, who could still think that Naruto was a demon, even after befriending him, in their face.

Naruto grimaced which only served to fuel her anger. She wasn't exactly a mother hen per say but she also wasn't the kind of person who could stay unaffected when hearing such terrible things happening to an innocent little child.

"Not really," Naruto muttered, looking down. Ayame waited patiently for Naruto to continue and she could hear how her father ceased the cooking to actively join in the conservation, seeing that Naruto didn't seem to be hungry anymore-a sign showing how severe things were.

When Naruto looked up again, his face was scrunched up in deep contemplation, a rare sight indeed. It wasn't like the boy was dumb, far from it, but he wasn't exactly a deep thinker person either.

"No," Naruto finally said, frowning. "That's the problem. I think he's a friend and I don't know what to do. I never had a friend. I see some children doing some stuff with their friends but when I do that, they look at me like I did something wrong. And then the adults say that it's dangerous to play with me. So is something gonna to happen if I play with Madara too much? What if I do something and Madara looks at me like I did something wrong. What if he's going to hate me like all the other people? What-"

"Naruto!" Ayame yelled, making Naruto stop who had become more hysteric the more he talked. When he heard the yell, Naruto seemed to be freeze, horrified at what he had been just saying. He hadn't intended to say that much.

As warm arms slowly enveloped him in a tight hug, Naruto barely managed to refrain himself from flinching. It felt warm and comfortable like jiji's and Madara's hugs. He knew that other boy his age complained when their mother hugged them, deeming such displays of physical affection for toddlers. But he wouldn't mind getting called a baby if it meant that he could feel so warm and comfortable more often. He snuggled even deeper into her embrace, allowing himself a soft smile.

He tensed slightly as he suddenly felt a hand grabbing his shoulder but he immediately relaxed when he recognized whom the hand belonged to. Teuchi patted him on the shoulder.

"You know what? Why don't you bring along the fellow with you the next time? We could give you some tips after we've met him personally," Teuchi suggested, trying his best not to sound too skeptical of his own plan. He really didn't know what to think of Naruto's so-called 'friend' and judging by his daughter's face, Ayame wasn't too sure either.

However, his doubts quickly vanished as he saw Naruto's face brighten up at the suggestion.

"That's awesome, dattebayo! Right, I'm gonna go find Madara and then we're gonna to eat all together." And like a little whirlwind, he was out of Ayame's embrace and a moment later the father and his daughter could only see Naruto's little figure in the distance.

"Uh, he didn't quite understand that you actually meant to bring him along on another day and not now, did he?" Ayame asked, sweetdropping.

"I suppose he didn't," Teuchi agreed, "we should prepare some more bowls. Naruto has only eaten a bowl and a half and chances are high that his friend has a big stomach too." With this said, they both went back to their work.

Barely noticing the odd looks he was drawing as he had gotten too accustomed to them, Naruto sprinted at full speed, in his mind going over the possible places Madara could be. The place where they first met? The place where they had that hugging moment? Maybe even the Academy?

He was just going to go to all places, dattebayo! Having made up his mind, he turned the corner to go to the nearest place where Madara could be. His eyes widened as he saw a person standing in his way but it was already too late to stop and he and that person collided, sending the blond sprawling to the ground.

"Are you alright?" a voice somewhere over Naruto asked. He slowly blinked, rubbing his forehead. The person he had bumped into before had grey hair and was about Madara's age. Currently, he was looking worriedly at Naruto, his hand outstretched.

Naruto couldn't help but stare at it for a short while before he finally managed to pull himself together and hesitantly grab the hand which pulled him up to his feet again. Originally, he had just intended to continue running and to ignore the snide remark which had been sure to follow. But it turned out that the person he had crashed into was actually alright and Naruto would sort of feel bad if he just left without another word.

"Uh, thanks," Naruto finally managed to say. He wasn't used to thanking strangers.

The boy smiled in response. "It's alright. What's with the hurry?"

"I've gotta find a friend," Naruto told him, slowly feeling himself getting impatient. That boy was nice and all but he really wanted to continue searching for Madara.

"What's the name of that friend of yours?" the boy continued his questioning.

"Madara," Naruto told him shortly, already starting to slowly edge away. He halted when he saw an odd expression cross the boy's face at the sound of the name. But it was gone in an instant, making Naruto unsure whether he had been imagining things or not. Shaking his head slightly to clear it, he addressed the boy, "yes, I really wanna go search for him now so see ya later!"

A hand tugged at his shirt as he turned to bolt off. Annoyed, he turned around once again to face the boy. Crossing his arms, he grumbled, "what?"

"I know about him," the boy told him.

"Really?" Maybe the boy knew where Madara was!

"Yeah, he's pretty known in the village by now. Have you already looked for him at the Uchiha compound? If rumors are correct, he's been adopted into the clan so that's most likely the place he's staying at," the grey-haired boy suggested.

"No, I didn't," Naruto admitted. He didn't know how to explain it but the thought of going to the Uchiha compound made him feel uncomfortable. The Uchiha were a weird bunch and actually going to the place where all those strange people lived… One of his classmates had once said that girls had cooties or something like that and that if you get too close to them you'd catch it. Was the Uchiha's weirdness contagious? He didn't want to be thought of as even weirder by the villagers!

The other boy must have noticed Naruto's discomfort as he proposed, "how about I accompany you to the compound?"

Naruto's eyes narrowed warily. People helping him that readily usually had something bad in mind. However, this time he took a closer look at the person's face. Someone had once said that a person's face showed what the person was thinking. Even though he sucked at that, he was willing to give it another try.

The person's lips were stretched into a genuine smile, actually, everything about him felt genuine. Something inside him told him that he could trust that person and absently, Naruto wondered if he had managed in succeeding reading expressions for the first time.

He couldn't dwell too long on that though as his attention snapped back to the boy who was waving a hand before Naruto's face.

"Oi, don't just fall asleep. Do you want me to help you?" he asked once again.

"Yeah." Hopefully, he wasn't going to regret it.

"Great," the boy said, obviously satisfied for some reason. "Then let's go. I'm Shin, by the way."

"I'm Naruto, dattebayo!"

Except for the slight widening of his eyes, nothing at all indicated that Shin was affected in any way by that new piece of knowledge.

Naruto found it strange that Shin didn't know him beforehand, seeing that apparently everyone in the village knew him by appearance. Maybe that Shin guy didn't go out often, the blond mused.

His line of thought was interrupted as Shin took Naruto's hand and began to drag him on, though it wasn't in a harsh manner. "What are you doing?" Naruto asked, trying to get his hand out of Shin's grip.

"Well, I always held Sai's hand. He's about your age and he seemed to like it," Shin explained.

"But I'm not that weird Sai guy," Naruto protested, having finally managed to disentangle his hand out of Shin's.

Shin sighed. "No, I suppose, you're not. Anyway, we should probably hurry."

"That's what I wanna do the whole time, dattebayo!" Naruto yelled as he shot off, leaving Shin in the dust.

"Hey, wait up!"

* * *

**A/N:** Yeah, not many exciting things happening but don't worry the next chapter's going to deal with what has happened to Madara. It should be up within the next week.

And yeah, this chapter has really much dialogue. I wanted to improve my writing skills in that area. If you have any tips on how could I improve, I'd be more than happy, if you could share them :)


	12. Waiting

**But I AM Madara! – Waiting **

**A/N**: Sorry for the delay. I should really stop saying when I will update next. As usual, I would like to thank you for reading, reviewing, favoriting and/or alerting this story. It really means a lot.

I would especially like to thank Duesal10 and Beloved Daughter giving me the inspiration for several things in this chapter, it wouldn't have been as good without it.

I know that Shin, while being older than Sai, is most likely not as old as Itachi but I wanted to give Madara someone to talk to around his age group aside of Itachi so I've stretched the age gap a bit. I hope you don't mind.

Thanks for Noradin for pointing out that Sai most likely had a different time at that time as Danzo had given him this name when he had assigned him on that 'join Team 7 and kill Sasuke' mission and for Shin, it's probably the same too.

But I don't really want to give them other names, it feels somehow strange to do so, so I'm just saying that Danzo has given them these names this time too (it's not that outlandish to assume that they'd use the same aliases several times as having to have a different name every single time gets unnecessarily confusing)and that Sai is the name Shin has taken a liking to when referring to well, Sai.

Lame excuse, I know but I hope that it doesn't bother you too much.

Also because a guest has asked, everything in this story is written in the limited third person so everything what the characters are assuming and thinking might not be exactly correct, this goes especially for anything time-travel relevant.

I hope you're going to enjoy his chapter, a warning beforehand, like the previous chapter, it has a lot of dialogue, especially in the first half.

* * *

Blood. Strangely enough, that was the first thought which crossed Madara's mind as he blinked his eyes open and slowly sat up. Bars were the sight which greeted him and for a while he was only able to dumbly stare at them as though they were a concept too alien for him to comprehend.

"Finally woke up, eh?" a voice said.

Slowly, Madara turned his head to where he supposed the origin of the voice had come from. Shisui. He was leaning against a wall, posture relaxed, and a lazy smile tugging at his lips. But there was something hard and sharp in his dark eyes which told Madara that he had to be cautious.

"Shisui?" he croaked, his throat felt hoarse and dry and something was continuously hammering inside his head, like an annoying, little pulse.

"The only," Shisui said, grinning wildly as he approached Madara and lowered himself so they saw each other face to face. "You sure gave the clan the shock of their life." He chuckled.

"Why are you here? Where am I? What ha-ha-" his voice broke off, prompting Shisui to flicker away and reappear fairly quickly, in his hand holding a cup of cold water.

"Come closer," Shisui ordered and reluctantly, Madara obeyed, the promise of wet, cold water making him swallow the rest of his pride.

"Now open your mouth and raise your chin," Shisui told him, when Madara's face was practically pressed against the bars. He did so and soon enough he was rewarded as he felt water filling his mouth His throat seemed to be singing in joy as he swallowed and seconds ticked away as he emptied the cup until there was not a drop of water left.

Carefully, Shisui placed the now empty cup on the ground, his eyes never straying away from Madara's face. "You know," he began, looking strangely fascinated. "If someone had told me that I'd be practically babysitting Uchiha Madara, well, I'd have probably laughed my ass off. Life's strange as that, I suppose."

Blinking the sudden surge of tiredness in his eyes away, Madara slowly asked, "what do you mean?" He felt strange. His body felt numb, his mind blank and even the act of breathing seemed to be too tiring for him. In a slightly more fervent tone, he added, "what have you done to me?"

Shisui took his time to answer and if Madara were in a better state of both, body and mind, he'd have gritted his teeth and give Shisui his most threatening death glare but alas, he was not. So he could only wait, subtly pinching himself to avoid dozing off.

Finally, Shisui answered. "To answer your several answers, let me first tell you that you're under the custody of the Military police so to put it bluntly, you are a prisoner of us and thus have the according rights which aren't many at all. Usually, you wouldn't be privy to these sorts of information but I know how it feels like not being in the know so I'm willing to brief you with some basic information. I suppose it wouldn't make much of a difference if I do, anyway.

"First of all, you're in the KMP's prison as you might have guessed. Usually we would put prisoners of your caliber in the high-security prison but they fall under the responsibility of the I&T department of Konoha and we, the Uchiha clan, would rather avoid letting anyone know of our discovery."

"Discovery?" Madara repeated, barely able to grasp on the meaning of Shisui's words.

"Yeah, our discovery," Shisui confirmed. Something flickered in Shisui's eyes and Madara unconsciously backed away at the sudden killing intention emitting from the shinobi before him, eyes widening as he observed the change of eye color from black to red.

"Care to tell me how Uchiha Madara, esteemed ancestor of mine, is locked away in this cell, when he's supposed to be dead for a century. And do tell me how you got your hands on that child body. I hope that you've not possessed the body of an innocent child."

The silence coming from Madara didn't deter Shisui in the slightest as he fired off another set of questions. "Have you been alive the whole time? How did you survive? If history books are to be believed, you should have been killed by Senju Hashirama-sama. When have you gotten your hands on a young, physical body? Are you behind the Kyuubi's attack?"

The word 'Kyuubi' made something inside of Madara boil and having momentarily fought off the haze which was clouding his mind, he fiercely demanded to know, "Kyuubi? What do you mean? How the hell am I supposed to be behind its attack?"

"Everyone knows that Uchiha Madara was able to control the Kyuubi with his eyes, his fight against the Shodai confirmed that. The Kyuubi showed up out of nowhere in the middle of the night, seven years ago. While it might have decided to destroy half the village on a whim before the Yondaime stopped it, it's more likely that it was controlled. Nothing was ever proven though. Well, until now that is. I don't get what the clan's still discussing about. If it were up to me the decision would be have been already made."

He let out a sigh, fingers going through his curly hair in distress. "I've always hated politics, they always make things much more complicated than they actually have to be. Thanks to you being a citizen of Konoha, we cannot just lay a hand on you. What we're currently doing is strictly against the laws and if something serious happens, it's us who are going to be accused and blamed. Well, they would be right for once but that's not something the clan can afford now. Not now. I suppose that's a classic case of being lucky under the circumstances."

It was hard to actually comprehend everything Shisui was trying to tell him. So once again he demanded to know, "What have you done to my body?"

"Pretty insistent, huh?" Shisui remarked casually, Sharingan having deactivated again. "Sorry, I won't tell you. The less you know of it, the more likely it is that you won't break free from it anytime soon."

The way he had phrased it… "So it's a genjutsu?"

Shisui smiled. "Maybe, maybe not. It could be just me messing around with you, you know?"

If Madara hadn't been in such a terrible condition, he'd have objected, threatening him to tell him everything. The pain in his head seemed to duplicate. With a groan, he let himself drop to the ground again.

"You're feeling pretty shitty right now, eh?" Shisui asked, his grin belying any possible signs of worry.

Mustering up what little strength he had left, Madara gave him his most scaring glare which only made Shisui chuckle.

"I suppose you do. That thing was specifically created for that purpose, to make its victim feel like that. Well, one last question and I will stop bother you. You don't seem to be in the right condition for an interrogation anyway. What exactly was going on in your mind when you put Fugaku-san and the rest of the officers under a genjutsu, using your Mangekyo?" His eyes narrowed, eyes shifting into the Sharingan once again.

"Well, I can understand that you might not want to be exposed, not being exactly welcomed in Konoha and all. So I can understand that you might want to deceive them, giving them false memories of your past while they're under the influence of your jutsu so that no one would be suspicious. I mean, even the most paranoid Uchiha wouldn't suspect you of putting all of the Uchiha present during that process under a genjutsu. That's not possible after all, unless you have the Mangekyo Sharingan and who in his right mind would ever think that little Madara-kun is in possession of something like that, even if the name is a tad bit, well, suspicious.

"So I guess the plan could have worked out pretty well. The only catch is that you've fallen unconscious while putting them under your genjutsu. Because of that we were able to arrest you and render you as harmless as possible while you were knocked out for like two hours. You're sort of stupid for not making absolutely sure that your new body can handle the strain of using the Mangekyo, you know?" he finally fell silent, a small amused smile tugging at his lips.

Absently, Madara wondered why the hell Shisui was giving him so much information when he was wholly aware that right now he wouldn't be able to process half of it anyway. The only thing it did was to make Madara's headache grow stronger because of all the thinking he had to do to at least get the most vital parts of Shisui's longwinded explanation. Maybe, that was exactly why Shisui was doing it. He hadn't struck Madara as particularly sadistic but life was always surprising like that.

It took a moment for him to realize that he was slowly recovering from whatever it was that was affecting him. He was able to form coherent thoughts again, although they didn't make much sense currently. Mulling over Shisui's explanation, he asked the one thing which was bugging him the most.

"What the hell is the Mangekyo Sharingan?" As far as he knew, he had never heard of such a type of Sharingan ever before in his life.

"That's a joke, right?" Shisui looked as though he had a hard time believing it.

"Geez, I'm not lying but of course, I could trick you into thinking that I'm saying the truth with those special eyes of mine," Madara scoffed, only belatedly realizing that perhaps it wasn't exactly wise to show Shisui that he had already recovered to the point of being able to talk normally.

However, Shisui didn't seem to notice that, apparently bothered by something else. "That's strange, you actually seem to be telling the truth. How's that possible? To be in possession of the Mangekyo but not having a clue about what it is?"

"I didn't even know that I was in possession until you just told me," Madara said. "And I also wasn't even aware of the fact that I had been using it."

"So you're trying to tell me that you just unknowingly put Fugaku-san and several of the present officers under an A-, perhaps even S-level genjutsu?" Shisui asked, raising his eyebrows in disbelief.

"Well, I was sort of panicking at that time," Madara admitted, sitting up straight again. He felt uncomfortable not talking with Shisui on the same eyelevel. "I don't know how exactly the Mangekyo works," he stressed annoyed, not so subtly hinting that he still didn't know what it was, "but perhaps it has reacted to that panic. Something like that occasionally happens with the regular Sharingan too, right?"

Shisui hummed in agreement. "That might be the reason. Do tell me though why you felt the need to be panicked about having your memories seen. I mean, it wasn't like we forced you. You agreed or that's what was at least told to me. Unless, of course, there is a reason that makes you feel hesitant about revealing too much of your past."

"I would like to see you acting calmly, while a bunch of strangers, clan or not, are reading your every thought, things you would rather not want to be seen by people who barely know you, especially if it's not even necessary for them to be seen to check whether I'm trustworthy or not," Madara growled. Of course, that wasn't the main reason and judging by the expression of Shisui, he realized that too. Barely being able to suppress a sigh, he decided that telling Shisui the entire truth couldn't make things worse anymore. Actually, with things as they were right now, telling Shisui what had actually transpired might get him out of that mess in one piece.

"I'm going to tell you everything and then I suppose it's up to you of what to make out of it," Madara said, grim determination flickering in his dark eyes.

"Partly recovered, huh," Shisui noted lightly, grinning as he saw Madara's eyes widen in shock. "Don't worry, that's intended. While you still won't have any access to your chakra or be even in the position to use your body properly, your mind will soon return to its normal state. Useful for interrogations. First using the prisoner's weakness so that later on they will spill out all their dirty little secrets when they can actually speak properly again. It's hard to get anything out of a person when he's acting like a dimwit. Uh, I'm getting off the track again. Tsk, that's really a bad habit of mine. Never mind, shoot, Madara!"

Slightly raising his eyebrows at that strange command, Madara began to explain. When he had finished, Shisui seemed to be deep in thought. Eventually, he finally redirected his attention back to Madara, his red eyes seeming to bore holes into him, making Madara slightly flinch under his gaze.

Whatever was about to follow would most likely decide Madara's continued survival.

"Either you're one hell of an actor and inhumanly strong on top of that so that you're somehow able to resist my manipulation even in this weakened state or you're really telling the truth," Shisui finally said, looking troubled as though he didn't know which explanation of his was more believable.

"Manipulation?" Madara asked, totally bewildered. When had it started? While he might be weakened, it was rather worrisome that he hadn't notice even the slightest hint of his mind being tampered with. There had been many possible moments in which it had been possible for a manipulation to start, after all, Shisui had activated and deactivated his Sharingan several times during the course of their, well, interrogation-like conservation - Madara was fairly sure that joking and smiling on the interrogator's part at least wasn't how an interrogation usually went down.

"Well, it's wrong to say that it was a real manipulation because that would put too much of a strain on my eyes and I don't really feel like risking it. You see, what I've actually done is to make you deactivate some part of your thought pattern which makes you subconsciously suppress signs of lying and I've also sort of, well, nudged your mind to be more willing to tell the truth. It's really only a minimal alteration of your mind and can be fought off, although in your state it's supposed to be nearly impossible to do so," Shisui explained.

"I see," Madara said, not quite sure how to respond to that. "If you're able to use such a convenient kind of manipulation how come you haven't used it earlier when the clan was still wondering about my real identity and such?"

Shisui rolled his eyes as though the answer was obvious. "For exactly the same reason why I don't seize control of the council and the Hokage and control the village from its shadows. Because using that is really straining my eyes and it's something you can't use whenever you feel up to. Even using this weakened kind of indirect manipulation eats away at my chakra and my eyes currently feel like someone has thrown acid into them. That's why I only use it whenever it's absolutely necessary and up to the moment when your real identity was exposed the situation had never really warranted it for me to use it. After all, there were other relatively easy alternatives. Like Fugaku-san checking on your memory with the Sharingan. Well, so much for that," he said, shrugging.

"You're being surprisingly honest about your various strengths and weaknesses of your special eye technique," Madara noted. "And you talk much."

"Yeah, I know. Well, sue me. Having a best friend who you could easily mistake for some particularly talkative rock does wonder to your conservation skills. Besides, what could you do with the information I've given you? If you're telling the truth, you're probably weaker than me, even if you were on top form, seeing that I know what the Mangekyo is and thus can properly use it. If you're not telling the truth and you're basically the infamous Uchiha Madara in a child's body, I'm sure you've figured it out on your own by now," Shisui defended himself, at this point having deactivated his Sharingan to most likely let his eyes rest form the huge strain he had put on them.

That made sense… "Well, I'm telling the truth and now that you know my situation, can you tell me what's going to happen to me? I mean, the clan is probably assuming that things are worse than they actually are, thinking that it's the adult me being in a child body," Madara asked. He still wanted to know what the hell the Mangekyo Sharingan was but Shisui was being surprisingly tight-lipped and evasive on that topic so Madara figured that he'd ask later, seeing that right now it wasn't the most pressing matter.

"Thanks to you only using an half-assed genjutsu- even if it was quite powerful- we were able to break it fairly quick and Fugaku-san and the others were able to recover immediately. After their recovery and the decision to temporarily hold you prisoner in one of our cells, the clan has decided to hold a clan meeting in which it will be further discuss what we're going to do with you. They've been on it for quite a while and it doesn't seem as though it's going to end anytime soon. So until then, I suppose, we can only wait. I'm sure that they will soon call for you. When I got something for you to drink, I've also told another Uchiha that you've awoken so I'm fairly sure that the others at the meeting know it by now too," Shisui told him, getting up.

He went to the wall at the other end of the room and plopped himself down again, his back leaning against the wall. "You might as well take a nap. Looking at the way meeting usually go, it will take a while before they have decided on anything and are in the position to call for you and hear out your opinion on the matter," Shisui suggested, his eyes closed.

Taking a nap sounded like a good idea right now, Madara silently agreed as he finally allowed the tiredness, which he had fought against since the beginning of the conservation, to take him.

o.O.o

"We're lost, right?" Naruto deadpanned.

Shin sweatdropped. "Uh, maybe?" he said, laughing nervously.

"Everyone knows where the Uchiha compound is. I mean, it's like really big," Naruto said, frowning. "You're not from this village."

That would explain why the boy was acting so friendly towards him. It was strange that foreigners seemed to be nicer than the people who lived with him in the same village. Wasn't it usually supposed to be the other way around?

"I am," Shin disagreed. "it's just that… that I'm busy training so I can't go explore the village like you."

You didn't need to explore the village to know where the compound was Naruto was about to point out but there was something else about Shin's statement which had picked Naruto's attention.

"Training? You mean ninja training? Cool! Can you teach me some neat technique?" he asked excitedly, eyes sparkling.

Well, Madara did say that he'd teach him some techniques but he didn't want to wait for too long, after all, his goal was to surpass all the previous Hokages before him and that also meant becoming one earlier than the other ones. Besides, having more teachers and thus also learning more kickass jutsus was always better, dattebayo!

"Let's first find the compound before we decide to do anything else, okay?" Shin suggested kindly.

Crossing his arms, Naruto pouted. That sounded like the same excuse jiji would always use whenever he asked him something sensitive. It was always later, after this and that happened.

"Fine," Naruto huffed, knowing from experience that it wouldn't change anything if he insisted on his request for training and glaring at the boy next to him, who chuckled lightly at the younger boy's attics.

"Luckily, the great Naruto-sama knows a shortcut which will get us to the compound in a flash. Follow me," the blond ordered, waving his hand up and down. Shaking his head slightly in bemusement, Shin obeyed, silently wondering whether all of the children outside of ROOT were like…this.

o.O.o

His father was ill, his mother was worried, despite her trying her best to hide it, and his aniki was still on this stupid mission. It was all this foreign boy's fault, Sasuke decided angrily, glaring at the kunai which he held tightly in his grasp as though the weapon was to be blamed for this unfortunate situation.

Slightly relaxing his grip, he began to focus, his ark eyes calculating and determined. In one swift motion, he threw the kunai and it didn't take long before he heard the satisfying 'thud' of the kunai hitting its target accurately. Sasuke smirked smugly, But the smirk was soon gone when he remembered that there was no one to watch his progress anyway.

Scowling, he trotted to the scarecrow, which had a bull's eye painted on its head and served as his target for practice, in order to retrieve the kunai. However, he changed his mind and let himself drop to the ground, allowing his sore muscles to rest.

Focus was an important aspect of being a shinobi and in the state he was currently in, it wouldn't be of any use to him to continue his training. Closing his eyes, he let his mind sift through the recent events, hoping for a possible answer to his questions. No one had bothered to explain to him what had happened as usual.

But he knew that something was off. Rarely was his mother ever worried and if she actually was something bad had happened. Pestering his mother until she told him, she finally relented, telling him that father had suddenly fallen ill.

Sasuke had trouble imaging his strong father becoming so terribly weak due to an illness that his mother actually had to worry about him. Something inside of him was tightening at that thought. And there was a… shift of mood in the compound. Usually, he probably wouldn't have even noticed it but with his mother so tight-lipped and worried, he had been desperately searching for any hints as to what could have possibly happened to his father.

That was when he had noticed. The way several Uchiha seemed to act like nothing was amiss but how the way they moved, how they talked in hushed tones and how some of them were shooting him subtle looks of worry that at another time, he probably wouldn't have even noticed. If those weren't telltale signs that something was seriously wrong , then he wasn't sure what was.

He winced out in surprise at the sudden pain coming from his hands. Startled, he realized that the nails of his fingers had dug deeply into the skin of his palms. Relax, Sasuke told himself, unclenching his fists. Taking deep breaths, he mentally counted down from ten while he rose to sit up straight again. It didn't help much.

Dammit, where was Itachi? His brother would know what to do. He'd tell Sasuke what was wrong. He could somehow make father healthy again. He could make this stupid Madara disappear. He c-

"Sasuke?"

At the sound of that familiar voice he would recognize everywhere, Sasuke whipped his head around, eyes widening at the sight of his brother standing before him, still wearing his ANBU uniform. The membership to the ANBU troops was supposed to be a secret but here in the Uchiha clan, something like that was only a secret in name, hence the reason why Itachi could casually walk around in full ANBU regalia without anyone batting an eye.

He didn't do that often though as Itachi still wanted to somehow adhere to the rules or that was what Itachi had at least told him when he had asked his nii-san why he wasn't wearing that cool uniform always.

Today it seemed was the day in which many things were off. Itachi, his awesome big brother, looked troubled. Itachi never showed any signs of weakness. That was something like an unspoken rule but here he was showing worry just like his mother. Were things really that bad?

"Nii-san?" Sasuke asked hesitantly, unsure how to begin. Upon hearing that painfully weak voice of Sasuke, Itachi immediately schooled his expression, looking as strong and unbreakable as usual. Somehow seeing that broke the dam which was stopping the words from flowing and spilling out of his mouth.

"Father is ill!" it burst out of him. "Kaa-san is really worried and I don't really know why. No one's telling me. I bet it's that Madara's fault. That bastard has done something to father. Ever since he's here, things became strange. Please, nii-san, do something!"

Sasuke had hoped for his brother to give him a reassuring smile, telling comforting words, to simply give him the impression that everything was going to be fine. That his great brother would fix everything. What he didn't expect was the sudden expression of pure, unaltered shock, fear, anger, confusion and so many more things, _emotions_, he would have never expected to see on his brother's face.

It was the most scaring sight ever.

"Madara?" Itachi said eerily quiet, his face as blank as usual, everything about him seeming to tell that he was in absolute control of everything. A small side inside of Sasuke's mind told him that it was just an illusion, that like a genjutsu, it would break someday. He firmly told this voice to shut up.

He jerked in utter surprise when he saw Itachi's eyes harden and in a voice colder than ice, sending shivers down his spine, Itachi ordered, "Tell me where Madara is."

* * *

**A/N:** That's it. I'm fairly sure that in the first half of this chapter some of the things aren't right as in 'that's not how it's supposed to work' but for the life of mine I can't seem to figure out what exactly it is. Narutopedia isn't helping me much either. So if you find something which severely lacks any logic behind it, do tell me because I'm too stupid to figure it out :P

And I've given Shisui incredibly much spotlight in this chapter, especially considering that he's a really small minor character in canon. It's nice expanding barely known characters but it sort of feels like creating an OC and I really hope that I didn't turn him in some sort of Gary Sue because that's what I've been trying to avoid since I've started to write fanfiction.

So if there's anything wrong with my portrayal of Shisui's character, feel free to criticize me about it too. I can take criticism like a mature person, at least I hope I can so there's no need to be hesitant :)

On an entirely different note, I've recently published a Naruto/Toaru Majutsu no Index crossover called 'A Certain Scientific Uzumaki'. If you've got nothing better to do, it would be great if you could have a look on it as it's my first crossover ever.

I know that most of you don't know about Toaru Majutsu no Index but I've written the story in such a way that you will be able to understand by only knowing of the fandoms.

I hope you will enjoy the rest of your day. As for the next update, I won't say a specific point of time because it' won't be updated a t that time anyway but it's going to take a short while as exams are approaching and I still have to study a lot for them.


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